Patent ID: 8025774

Claim:
An apparatus for cracking a liquid hydrocarbon feedstock in a thermal gas cracker, to produce a cracked effluent from the cracker that includes tar, the apparatus comprising: (a) a thermal gas cracker for receiving a liquid hydrocarbon feed stream, the cracker comprising a convection section and a radiant section to produce an process effluent comprising olefins; (b) a primary transfer line exchanger (TLE) to receive the cracked effluent from the cracker, for the recovery of process energy from the cracked effluent; (c) a first quench fluid introduction system to introduce a first quench fluid into the cracked effluent from the TLE; (d) a first separator system for receiving a mixture of the first quench fluid and the cracked effluent from the TLE and separating the mixture into a first separator byproduct stream comprising tar and a first separator product stream; and (e) a second separator system to receive the first separator product stream and separate the first separator product stream into an overhead cracked gas effluent for recovery and a second separator byproduct stream comprising tar.