Spallina, VincenzoVelarde, Ildefonso CamposMedrano Jimenez, José AntonioGodini, Hamid RezaGallucci, FaustoVan Sint Annaland, Martin2017-12-15Spallina , V , Velarde , I C , Medrano Jimenez , J A , Godini , H R , Gallucci , F & Van Sint Annaland , M 2017 , ' Techno-economic assessment of different routes for olefins production through the oxidative coupling of methane (OCM): Advances in benchmark technologies : Advances in benchmark technologies ' , Energy Conversion and Management , vol. 154 , pp. 244-261 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2017.10.0610196-8904researchoutputwizard: 11556/652Publisher Copyright: © 2017 The Author(s)his paper addresses the techno-economic assessment of two technologies for olefins production from naphtha and natural gas. The first technology is based on conventional naphtha steam cracking for the production of ethylene, propylene and BTX at polymer grade. The unused products are recovered in a boiler to produce electricity for the plant. The plant has been designed to produce 1 MTPY of ethylene. In the second case, ethylene is produced from natural gas through the oxidative coupling of methane (OCM) in which natural gas is fed to the OCM reactor together with oxygen from a cryogenic air separation unit (ASU). The overall reactions are kinetically controlled and the system is designed to work at about 750–850 °C and close to 10 bar. Since the overall reaction system is exothermic, different layouts for the reactor temperature control are evaluated. For the naphtha steam cracking plant, the energy analysis shows an overall conversion efficiency of 67% (with a naphtha-to-olefins conversion of 65.7%) due to the production of different products (including electricity), with a carbon conversion rate of 70%. The main equipment costs associated with naphtha steam cracking are represented by the cracker (about 30%), but the cost of ethylene depends almost entirely on the cost associated with the fuel feedstock. In case of the OCM plant, the overall energy conversion efficiency drops to maximally 30%. In the studied plant design, CO2 capture from the syngas is also considered (downstream of the OCM reactor) and therefore the final carbon/capture efficiency is above 20%. The cost of ethylene from OCM is higher than with the naphtha steam cracking plant and the CAPEX affects the final cost of ethylene significantly, as well as the large amount of electricity required.181017419enginfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessjournal article10.1016/j.enconman.2017.10.061OCM processEthylene productionEnergy analysisEconomicsNaphtha steam crackingOCM processEthylene productionEnergy analysisEconomicsNaphtha steam crackingRenewable Energy, Sustainability and the EnvironmentNuclear Energy and EngineeringFuel TechnologyEnergy Engineering and Power TechnologySDG 13 - Climate ActionProject IDinfo:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/679933/EU/MEthane activation via integrated MEmbrane REactors/MEMEREinfo:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/679933/EU/MEthane activation via integrated MEmbrane REactors/MEMEREFunding InfoThe authors are grateful to the European Union’s HORIZON2020_x000D_ Program (H2020/2014-2020) for the financial support through the_x000D_ H2020 MEMERE project under the grant agreement n° 679933.The authors are grateful to the European Union’s HORIZON2020_x000D_ Program (H2020/2014-2020) for the financial support through the_x000D_ H2020 MEMERE project under the grant agreement n° 679933.http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85033556648&partnerID=8YFLogxK