Abstract
In this paper, we develop two novel process designs for manufacturing ethylene and propylene from shale gas. In the first process design, raw shale gas is processed to produce the mixture of ethane-propane, which is then stream co-cracked to produce ethylene and propylene. In the second process design, ethane and propane are produced from shale gas separately; then, ethylene is mainly produced via the steam cracking of ethane, and propylene is mostly manufactured via the dehydrogenation of propane. We also consider a conventional naphtha cracking design, in order to compare the economic and environmental performance of manufacturing ethylene and propylene from shale gas with from naphtha. All process designs are modeled and simulated in Aspen HYSYS to obtain the mass and energy balances. On this basis, we conduct a comparative techno-economic and environmental analysis. The economic analysis indicates that the two proposed designs results in much lower production costs for ethylene and propylene than the conventional naphtha cracking design. However, in terms of life cycle GHG emissions, manufacturing ethylene and propylene via the naphtha cracking design is more attractive.
