Oxycracking of hydrocarbons: chemistry, technology and economic potential

In 1993, Huff and Schmidt reported the oxydehydrogenation of ethane to ethene at millisecond contact time. Shell Chemicals performed a study to confirm these claims and explore the technical scope and economic potential of this technology. The technical and economical results are summarised here and compared with various oxydehydrogenation and oxycracking studies that have been reported in the literature since then. Beyond confirming the initial claims and later findings, we also disclose new results such as the conversion of methane to ethene and the cracking alkenes to alkynes and dienes. The economic analysis concluded that this technology would at best provide marginal cost benefits over the existing steam cracker technology. However, it does not offer sufficient economic advantages to justify the development costs and take the implementation risks. The same seems to apply to several oxycracking technologies reported in the literature.