技術論文とプレゼンテーション

The conventional production of ethylene is performed in steam cracking furnaces, which require heating a stream of light alkanes above 700°C though a natural gas combustion. As a result, the carbon footprint of a ton of ethylene is important, and the fossil fuel mass required for its production is larger than the mass of the ethylene produced. Non-oxidative coupling of methane to ethylene could serve as an alternative pathway for ethylene production; on top, if such process is electrified, the process could have almost zero emissions.
Electrification at scale of such a process is challenging as it must work in the range of 10kt – 1 Mt per reactor per year. TotalEnergies and SIMTEC developed a COMSOL Multiphysics® model to investigate this new process and evaluate the induction heating of a graphite felt catalyst. Coil height, current frequency and tube radius are varied to identify important design variables, discard poor configurations, and shortlist a relevant starting point for further experimental investigations.