University of Basra for oil and gas

Petroleum and gas engineering college

Chemical and petroleum refining engineering department

Reduction of energy consumption of petroleum

distillation columns using distillation
sequencing process

Name: Noor Taha Abdullah

Department: Chemical and petroleum refining engineering
College: Petroleum and gas engineering
Subject: Proposal of an applied research project
Overview
Most of the processes in chemical industry are involved in purifying components. As a
consequence, a large part of the energy use in many industrial sectors can be attributed to
separation processes. Distillation is the dominant separation technology in chemical industries
despite its huge energy consumption. Distillation consumes about 3% of the total energy
consumed globally Since many separation tasks need to continue with this technology, methods
to determine the minimal energy used in a given distillation task have become important. For
separations of a multicomponent mixture, one way to reduce the energy requirements is using
thermally coupled distillation columns instead of the conventional direct sequence. These new
methods permit energy savings more than 30% in comparison with conventional sequence
distillation columns. Moreover, the recent rise in energy prices and demands further emphasizes
the relevance of this problem.

Methodology
Distillation process is still the most promising separation technique used in oil, gas, chemical, and
petrochemical industries. But this process in most cases consumes a lot of energy, which is the
greatest part of operating costs in these industries. Thus improving the energy consumption of
distillation processes is still an interesting field of study. Industrial mixtures commonly contain
more than two components and these separation tasks could not be implemented efficiently in a
single column. Hence it is required to employ a number of columns for the separation of
multicomponent mixtures to the number of desired products. This leads to many possible
configurations (sequences) for separating a multicomponent mixture into relatively pure products
(sharp split) or several multicomponent product streams (non-sharp or sloppy split). On the other
hand, the distillation sequences for separating an n-component feed could be classified in
accordance with the number of distillation columns: having less than n-1 columns (intensified or
reduced), exactly n-1 columns (basic), or more than n-1 columns (Sridhar et al., 2010). The basic
sequences are divided into two categories: simple basic sequences, in which columns have one
feed and two products from condenser on top and rebuilder at the bottom (direct, indirect); and
basic complex sequences, in which at least one column has more than one feed or has side
products (prefractionator).
The best few non-heat-integrated sequences can be identified most simply using the total vapor
load as a criterion. If this is not satisfactory, then the alternative sequences can be sized and cost
using shortcut techniques. Complex column arrangements, such as the prefractionator and
thermally coupled arrangements, offer large potential savings in energy compared to sequences
of simple columns. Partitioned columns (or dividing-wall columns) also offer large potential
savings in capital cost. However, caution should be exercised in fixing the design at this stage, as
the optimum sequence can change later in the design once heat integration is considered. Crude
oil distillation is carried out in a complex column sequence in which live steam is injected into the
separation to provide the heat required and to reduce the partial pressure of the components to
be distilled. The design most often used is the equivalent of the partially thermally coupled indirect
sequence. However, other design configurations can also be used. The design of sequences of
simple and complex columns can be carried out on the basis of the optimization of a
superstructure. The overall separation problem is first decomposed into tasks. Combining tasks
together allows sequences of simple distillation columns to be constructed. This can be extended
to include complex columns by combining tasks to produce hybrid tasks that can be sized and
costed as complex columns. The pressure of each task and each hybrid task can be fixed to
operate only at discrete pressures. The discrete pressures are dictated at this stage in the design
by the temperatures of either the available heating or cooling utilities

Objective
Consider now the particular case in which a homogeneous multicomponent fluid mixture needs to
be separated into a number of products, rather than just two products. As noted previously,
distillation is the most common method of separating homogeneous fluid mixtures and in this
proposal, the choice of separation will be restricted such that all separations are carried out using
distillation only. If this is the case, generally there is a choice of order in which the products are
separated that is, the choice of distillation sequence.
In other word, the main objective is Design and optimization of distillation columns
sequencing used to separate organic mixture in oil refinery and choice the best design
that consumes less vapor flow rate and less energy and cost.

References
1. King CJ (1980) Separation Processes, 2nd Edition, McGrawHill.
2. Petlyuk FB, Platonov VM and Slavinskii DM (1965) Thermodynamically Optimal Method for Separating
Multicomponent Mixtures, Int Chem Eng, 5: 555.
3. Kaibel G (1988) Distillation Column Arrangements With Low Energy Consumption, IChemE Symp Ser,
109: 43.
4. Chemical Process Design and Integration by robin smith 2005