Abstract: Propane in liquefied gas can be used as a high-quality olefin cracking or dehydrogenation feed to increase propylene production. Taking a cracking and a dehydrogenation process with the same capacity of 320kt/a as study objectives, the simulation and main operation parameters were performed and optimized by Aspen Plus software, respectively. Raw material consumption, utilities consumption, process operating parameters and chemical properties are used to analyze the techno-economic and safety of two processes. If the propane cracking process uses diene (ethylene and propylene) and the propane dehydrogenation process uses propylene as products, the total yield of the two processes is 80.3% and 84.4% respectively. The energy consumption per unit product is 4.6 MW/t and 4.4MW/t, respectively. The Dow’s fire and explosion index of the most dangerous equipment, propane cracker and the propylene distillation column is 185.6 and 125.7, respectively.

Key words: cracking, dehydrogenation, process simulation, energy consumption, inherent safety