Published March 1971
This report supplements the original Process Economics Program report on ethylene issued in August 1967 (Report No. 29). There has been little change in ethylene production technology since then. However, the recent short supply of natural gas and propylene in the United States and also the short supply of naphtha at reasonable cost in Europe and Japan has promoted very active interest in the cracking of gas oil and crude oil. Also because the propylene supply was very short, keen interest was shown in producing propylene selectively, not just as .a byproduct of ethylene production.
For these reasons, this supplementary report is mainly concerned with the technology and cost of ethylene and propylene production by cracking gas oil and crude oil, and of propylene production by catalytic dehydrogenation and oxidative dehydrogenation of propane. Also reviewed are various propylene production processes other than these dehydrogenation processes.
