Oxidative dehydrogenation of ethane to ethylene + acetic acid (EDHOX concept)

Linde's EDHOX technology co-produces ethylene AND acetic acid from ethane and oxygen in one catalytic step (a proprietary mixed-metal catalyst in a multi-tubular salt-cooled reactor), with combined ethylene+acetic-acid selectivity published above 93% and the CO2 by-product of over-oxidation recovered pure (no nitrogen dilution, since the oxidant is pure O2, not air). Modeled here as three chained fixed-conversion reactors on real, exactly mass-balanced reactions: the main dehydrogenation (C2H6 + 0.5 O2 -> C2H4 + H2O), the acetic-acid co-production path (C2H6 + 1.5 O2 -> CH3COOH + H2O), and a minor full-oxidation loss path (C2H6 + 3.5 O2 -> 2 CO2 + 3 H2O) accounting for the un-selective balance -- the same 'illustrative, not fitted' posture as the naphtha cracker's furnace, since Linde's catalyst kinetics are proprietary and not published. The per-reaction conversions here are tuned to reproduce the one real published number (>93% combined selectivity: this flowsheet computes ~96%), not an assumed per-pass ethane conversion, which Linde doesn't publish. Honesty note: the acetic acid/water co-product is reported as one crude liquid stream (recovered via a simple cold knockout, ~98% of the acetic acid produced) -- the real downstream acetic-acid/water dehydration column is not modeled, matching this codebase's convention of disclosing every unmodeled downstream separation rather than implying a purity that wasn't computed.