Cradle to Gate
Identity ID
2503ed25-cf71-40ea-8ecb-bbdba1fe20c9
Materials
Associated ID
2c449ca5-8d68-4110-afbe-c9e91bc4563a
Included activities starts
Included activities ends
Description
High pressure steam is mainly used for steam turbine drive, high-load heat supply to key process units and supply to the steam header of the industrial park, and is a core utility product for improving system energy efficiency; this dataset includes the main raw and auxiliary materials, energy, waste and atmospheric emissions of the production process, in which the wastewater preliminary treatment in the utility processes and the waste gas treatment process are included within the dataset boundary, while infrastructure such as the manufacture of production equipment and plant construction is not included within the dataset boundary; the inventory is formed by merging data from multiple sources; the production activities of this product include feedstock cracking, separation, waste heat recovery and other process steps; this dataset contains multiple products, allocated by mass combined with special rules.
Activity Description
The production activities of this product include raw material cracking, separation, waste heat recovery and other processes.
Process Description
High-pressure steam is a high-grade thermal energy product produced by the energy recovery process of the steam cracking system. The main component is water vapor. It has higher pressure and enthalpy value and is suitable for scenarios where power and high-temperature heating are coupled. This product takes stable pressure and temperature levels as key performance parameters, and can achieve energy cascade release through temperature and pressure reduction or back-pressure turbine. High-pressure steam is mainly used for steam turbine drive, high-load heating of key process units, and park steam main pipe energy supply. It is a core utility product that improves system energy efficiency.
Time period
2016
2026
Geography
China
Macroeconomic value
Business-as-Usual
Data validation
Yes
Technology
Current Technology
Technology comment
This dataset models a feedstock mix of naphtha, propane, and liquefied petroleum gas. At 800-900°C in a cracking furnace, longer-chain saturated hydrocarbons are broken down into shorter unsaturated compounds. The main products include ethylene and propylene, with hydrogen, mixed C4 hydrocarbons, and other co-products. Cracking-unit designs are broadly similar and require only minor modifications for local conditions. Naphtha remains the principal feedstock, although the shares of light components such as propane and butane and liquid feedstocks such as liquefied petroleum gas have increased in recent years. A portion of the by-product fuel gas is used in the cracking furnaces.
1. Cracking: Feedstocks entering the plant are preheated, mixed with dilution steam, and heated before cracking in the radiant section of the furnace. Liquid-feed furnaces use highly selective radiant coils for high-severity cracking, while gas-feed furnaces use multi-pass coils. Cracked gas is sent to the downstream separation section. Both liquid- and gas-feed furnaces are bottom-fired.
2. Separation: Heat is recovered from the cracked gas in a waste-heat boiler, after which the gas serves as stripping medium in the gasoline fractionator. The fractionator bottoms leave the plant as crude fuel oil, while the overhead stream is quenched in a quench-water tower and sent to compression. The demethanizer bottoms are sent to the deethanizer, and the deethanizer overhead enters an acetylene converter, where acetylene is selectively hydrogenated to ethylene and ethane.