Light olefins such as ethylene and propylene are among the most demanded compounds and play an important role in chemical industry. They were conventionally produced by pyrolysis of naphtha from crud oil processing in tube furnace (steam cracking). In a typical steam cracker, light olefin yield is about 42-48% and propylene yield is about 5%, and the adjustment of product selectivity is difficult. On the other hand, cracking is a strong endothermic reaction operated at ~800^oC, which makes steam cracking is one of the largest energy consumption processes in the chemical industry.

DICP has developed a new technology named methanol-coupled naphtha cracking for olefins production. In this process, naphtha cracking temperature can be reduced by catalytic cracking coupled with methanol transformation. As the exothermic methanol to olefins (MTO) reaction and the endothermic naphtha cracking reaction are closely coupled in one reactor, the energy consumption can be considerably reduced compared with that in steam cracker. Furthermore, low temperature catalytic cracking results in lower methane and coking yields, and the yield of propylene can be improved by adjusting the active components of the catalyst. From the perspective of raw material utilization, higher ratio of naphtha can be converted into olefins.

Catalyst development for this technology has been completed in DICP laboratory and scale-up preparation also accomplished. Process scale up of pilot test using fluidized bed reactor with the capacity of 100 tons per year is preparing and a demonstration unit is also under consideration.