Thermal Cracking of Hydrocarbons for the Production of Light Olefins; A Review on Optimal Process Design, Operation, and Control

Olefins production plants are large-scale plants, in most of which gaseous and liquid hydrocarbons are cracked to produce light olefins. The complex and large-scale nature of these plants makes it an utmost necessity to design and operate them with the use of computer-aided optimization and control methods. This review paper provides an overview of the reported research works on the optimization and control of different parts of olefin plants. The main research studies are discussed in two main sections: Optimal Design and Process Operation and Control. In the Optimal Design section, the state of the optimal design of cracking furnace systems, cold-end separation systems, and separation columns have been studied. Then in the Process Operation and Control section, the control of cracking furnaces, the control of cold-end separation systems, real-time optimization of olefin plants, cyclic scheduling of cracking furnace systems, production planning of olefin plants, and finally, start-up and shutdown operations in these plants have been extensively reviewed. This paper is a continuation of the three review articles published previously entitled Thermal and Catalytic Cracking of Hydrocarbons for the Production of Light Olefins, the last of which focused on process modeling and simulation.