Skip to main content

Clear about carbon

Published by , Senior Editor
Hydrocarbon Engineering,


When discussing carbon emissions reduction, it is important to look into many industry sectors, but probably even more so to look precisely into petrochemicals production. Why this is the case is easy to explain.

Petrochemicals are the backbone of the modern chemical industry, because chemicals are used to produce things which all of us use daily. The main feedstock to produce petrochemicals is hydrocarbons, which are extracted from crude oil or natural gas. Their production process typically involves several steps, including cracking, reforming, and polymerisation. Cracking, for instance, breaks down large hydrocarbon molecules into smaller ones, which are then used to create basic petrochemicals like ethylene, propylene, and benzene. These basic chemicals are further processed to produce intermediates and final products.

The applications of petrochemicals are vast. In the plastics industry, petrochemicals are used to create materials such as polyethylene and polypropylene, which are essential for packaging, automotive parts, and consumer goods. In agriculture, petrochemicals are used to produce fertilizers that enhance crop yields. In the pharmaceutical industry, they are used to manufacture active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and other essential chemicals.

In Europe, petrochemical sites receive the basic chemicals from a cracker unit located on site or very close to it and process them further into site-specific products with many additional production units. The cracker unit is obviously not the only energy consumer, but it is by far the biggest. A typical cracker unit (in Europe, most often a steam cracker unit) converts the hydrocarbon source naphtha into basic petrochemicals and consumes approximately 1.6 - 2.8 MJ of energy to process 1 kg of hydrocarbons. To put 2.8 MJ into perspective: 3.6 MJ is equivalent to 1 kWh, 6 - 7 MJ is the daily basal metabolic rate of a 70 kg adult, and 42 MJ is the energy released from burning 1 kg of crude oil.

Let us come back to the industrial processes. Even if the (hydro-)carbons remain in the process while cracking naphtha, the energy which is needed to crack and further process the hydrocarbons is coming from outside the process units and is mainly also coming from oil or gas. Therefore, improving the energy consumption in the process is typically key to reduce operational expenditures (OPEX) and is definitely key to reduce carbon emissions at the same time.

The focus is increasingly on energy optimisation, and licensors and producers are focusing more on possible changes to processes. However, in order to be able to tackle changes, firstly it is important to know what the current status is. A ‘baseline’ is required against which energy-reduction and CO2-reduction measures can be compared, allowing operators to evaluate whether the ideas for CO2 reduction actually make sense.


This article was originally published in the December 2024 issue of Hydrocarbon Engineering magazine. To read the full article, sign in or register for a free subscription.

Written by Pascal Gaillot, Yokogawa.

Read the article online at: https://www.hydrocarbonengineering.com/special-reports/24012025/clear-about-carbon/

You might also like

 
 
 

Embed article link: (copy the HTML code below):


 

This article has been tagged under the following:

Downstream news