Ethylene is one of the largest building blocks in the petrochemical industry, mainly produced by steam cracking of ethane derived from naphtha or shale gas at high temperatures (>800 °C). Despite its technical maturity and economic competitiveness, the thermal steam cracking of ethane is highly energy-intensive. Herein, an electrochemically engineered direct conversion process of ethane to produce hydrogen and ethylene using a planar protonic ceramic membrane reactor with a bi-functional three-dimensional catalytic electrode is reported, with a single-pass ethane conversion of 40% and ethylene yield of 26.7% at 550 °C. Compared with the industrial ethane steam cracking, this method saves process energy input by 45.1% and improves process energy efficiency by 50.6%, based on comprehensive process simulation using Aspen Plus software. Further, steam electrolysis treatment under the solid oxide electrolysis cell mode can regenerate the system’s catalytic performance and significantly alleviate catalytic degradation by 74%, demonstrating high techno-economic viability.

中文翻译：

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在质子陶瓷电化学电池中，在 550 °C 以下以电化学方式将乙烷高效转化为乙烯和氢气

乙烯是石化工业中最大的基石之一，主要由石脑油或页岩气衍生的乙烷在高温 (>800 °C) 下蒸汽裂解生产。尽管具有技术成熟度和经济竞争力，乙烷的热蒸汽裂解是高度能源密集型的。在此，报道了一种使用具有双功能三维催化电极的平面质子陶瓷膜反应器的电化学工程直接转化乙烷生产氢气和乙烯的过程，乙烷单程转化率为 40%，乙烯产率为 26.7 % 在 550 °C。与工业乙烷蒸汽裂解相比，该方法基于Aspen Plus软件的综合过程模拟，节省了45.1%的过程能源投入，提高了50.6%的过程能源效率。更远，