Timeline for Why isn't ethane used for cooking?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
9 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 8, 2022 at 16:31 | comment | added | caiohamamura | Ethane on the other hand could be produced from biomass ethanol through electrocatalysis using renewable energy producing both hydrogen gas and ethane, which could be used to power fuel cells (hydrogen) and for heating (ethane). Maybe it will be the most common fuel in the future. | |
| Apr 30, 2016 at 0:49 | comment | added | Byron Wall | @LevelRiverSt, thanks for the data. I couldn't find a source with a quick search yesterday. Looks like 2010 feedstock split for ethylene (see page 13) for the US was ~65% ethane. I suspect that has only increased since then. Maybe a US-centric view (I worked in the US ethylene industry making polyethylene), but ethane is critical to the production of ethylene here. | |
| Apr 29, 2016 at 2:31 | comment | added | Level River St | @ByronWall it seems US used 51% ethane in 2005, while the world used 25.9%, a significant geographical difference. images.pennwellnet.com/ogj/images/ogj3/9613jch02.gif Old style plants get 30-40% C2H4 from heavy feed. That's OK as all other products are saleable. Post-cracking separation cost is high, but not as high as separating out C2H6 feed from mixed gases, or they'd have done it. New plants use more C2H6, because LNG has given high C2H6 availability, effectively separating C2H6 from CH4 "for free" so better yield but less saleable byproduct. C2H6 is nice to have, not essential. | |
| Apr 29, 2016 at 0:16 | comment | added | Byron Wall | @LevelRiverSt, I think you're understating the role of ethane in ethylene production. There are world scale crackers that run almost exclusively on ethane. Others use an ethane/propane mix to get a little more propylene and heavier products. Most new crackers being built in the US are made for light and not heavy feedstocks. Unlike heavy feedstocks with their myriad products, ethane cracks to very few products (methane, H2, ethylene) with good yields. | |
| Apr 27, 2016 at 17:59 | comment | added | Level River St | Given that the C2H4 production process basically consists of smashing hydrocarbons up with high temperatures, then quenching & separating the results, it doesn't care that much what the feedstock is. C2H6 isn't often deliberately separated from CH4, due to expense of low temperature distillation. It's becoming more available, because where liquefied natural gas is made, it's desirable to have pure CH4 for a single boiling point. But C2H6 isn't "extremely useful" in C2H4 synthesis, it's just not much use for anything else. Much of the C2H6 used in C2H4 synthesis comes from the recycle stream. | |
| Apr 27, 2016 at 17:33 | comment | added | Michael DM Dryden | Ethane is one of the commonly-used feedstocks, along with LPG, propane, butane, etc. used for steam cracking when lighter products like ethylene are desired, whereas steam cracking of heavier feedstocks like naptha tend to produce bigger products like longer alkenes and aromatic compounds. Ethylene is made starting from many feedstocks, and I don't know how much ethylene is made from ethane, but ethylene production seems to be the primary use of ethane. | |
| Apr 27, 2016 at 14:36 | vote | accept | Joshua Frank | ||
| Apr 27, 2016 at 11:18 | comment | added | Level River St | The reason more methane than ethane is used as a fuel is simply its greater abundance in natural gas. Most polyethylene is not made from ethane. Polyethylene is made from ethylene, which is mostly made by cracking longer hydrocarbons. This is a rather imprecise process, so the products are separated and used as follows: Hydrogen and methane: burnt in the cracker furnace; ethylene -> polyethylene; propylene -> dimerization to branched high octane C6 gasoline component and / or polymerization to polypropylene; C4+ -> recycled. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethylene is a good starting point. | |
| Apr 26, 2016 at 19:09 | history | answered | Michael DM Dryden | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
