13-03-2017

Neste Jacobs and Coolbrook to develop new olefin cracking technology

Neste Jacobs, a technology, engineering and project management company and Coolbrook, a technology development company are developing a new technology innovation in collaboration with University of Oxford's Osney Thermo Fluids laboratory, University of Cambridge's Whittle laboratory, and major chemical producers such as Dow Chemical as well as equipment manufacturers including MANTurbo. This innovation is based on hydrocarbon (e.g. Naphtha) cracking method, where ethylene, the core raw material for polyethylene is produced.

"Coolbrook patented RDR (RotoDynamicReactor) technology improves cracking yields of olefins with about a third compared to the best technology available today. Significant financial benefits can be gained with RDR technology. It saves non-renewable resources, decreases radically side-products from ethylene cracking, and simplifies operations of ethylene production," states Harri Johannesdahl, CEO, Coolbrook Ltd.

Neste Jacobs is involved in the collaboration and development of this new technology with a team specializing in cracker technology, reaction kinetics, and modelling.

"Our team has been co-operating in this project with Coolbrook for several years now and we are happy that this fruitful cooperation is continuing. We are expecting great results from this collaboration in ethylene production and we believe that this innovation has great export potential," says Jarmo Suominen, CEO, Neste Jacobs.    

"Coolbrook is a product development company that co-operates with the best partners globally. Neste Jacobs represents top knowledge and competence within the field of chemical process industry and is hence a logical choice as partner for Coolbrook. During the development of the RDR technology, completely new technical solutions will be developed and patented. The skillful team from Neste Jacobs is playing a central role in this, both in terms of traditional engineering competence as of developing new innovations," Johannesdahl continues.

During the two-year project, a pilot reactor based on RDR technology will be built and tested. The pilot reactor will verify olefin yields and confirm reactor model combining kinetics and aerodynamics and CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) results. The commercial launch of this new technology is expected during 2019.