The purpose of this research is to scrutinize the stagnation point flow of chemically reacting Powell–Eyring nanofluid past an inclined cylinder using the impact of activation energy with Cattaneo–Christov heat flux. Flow formulation is developed by considering the impact of nonlinear thermal radiation, binary chemical reaction, non-Fourier heat flux and the Buongiorno nanofluid model. Proper transforms yield highly nonlinear differential systems, which are solved using shooting procedure with the fourth-order R–K (Runge–Kutta) method. Comparative reviews between the formerly published literature and the current data are made for specific cases, which are inspected to be in a tremendous agreement. The narrative reviews show that the current research problem has not premeditated so far. Effectiveness of innumerable parameters is publicized graphically on velocity, temperature and concentration curves cases of various angles 0° horizontal cylinder, 45° inclined cylinder and 90° vertical cylinder. It is manifested that fluid velocity promotes with the larger values of velocity ratio. It is also noticed that concentration declines when destructive chemical reaction enhances, whilst the antithesis direction is noticed in the condition of the generative chemical reaction. Furthermore, the stream lines are closer to the cylindrical wall when α = 90° and the stream lines are far away to the cylindrical wall when α = 90°. © 2020, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals.