Converting Hydrocarbons to high value chemicals

Join this meeting to learn about converting hydrocarbons to olefins and aromatics in a novel reactor with potential carbon neutrality

Novel Reactor for Converting Hydrocarbons to Olefins and Aromatics

This presentation describes a novel reactor for high temperature thermochemical conversion of ethane to olefins. The central feature is an efficient flow pattern with a large recirculation zone that provides stable and compact 2500°C flames and a thin conical annular swirling jet that provides fast transfer of mass, momentum, and heat. The jet is directed through a unique converging-diverging nozzle that maintains relatively low wall temperature and consequently reduces the need for external cooling. Hydrocarbon stream is introduced tangentially through volutes in a way that there is an initial heat transfer with minimal mass transfer followed by fast mixing of countercurrent streams resulting in high selectivity to ethylene and acetylene comparable to conventional steam cracker.

Speaker: Sreekanth Pannala

SABIC Corporate Research and Development

Research Fellow

Dr. Sreekanth Pannala is a Research Fellow at SABIC from 2015. Sreekanth is a multidisciplinary technologist and computational scientist using advanced modeling to accelerate development of novel reactors and processes that are energy efficient, sustainable, and use alternative feedstocks such as crude oil and mixed plastic waste. Prior to this, he was a distinguished research staff member in the Computer Science and Mathematics Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He received his B. Tech (1993) in Aerospace Engineering from IIT Kharagpur and M.S. (1994) and Ph.D. (2000) in Aerospace Engineering specializing in the area of computational combustion of two-phase flows from Georgia Tech. He received Federal Laboratory Technology Transfer award in 2006 and R&D 100 award in 2007 for his contribution to the development of MFIX, an open-source multiphase reacting flows simulation suite. He has served as a principal investigator for various DOE computational science projects and has over 100 journal and conference publications in various areas of computational science and engineering. He also served as a lead editor for a book on computational gas-solids reacting flows and co-edited an internal book at SABIC on high temperature natural gas pyrolysis. He led the development of battery simulation software environment. He was also awarded Secretary of Energy’s Achievement Award - highest non-monetary award from Department of Energy.