Heat Exchanger Network Design for Fouling Fluids

Compiled by J D Kumana, jkumana@aol.com; April 2009

Crude oil distillation accounts for a large fraction of the energy used in oil refining. Crude oil
contains a variety of substances, which tend to deposit as fouling layers in the heat exchangers
and this results in decreased energy recovery and requires increased energy input. Thus, attempts
are conventionally made to recover the energy used by a sequence of heat exchangers, often
called the “pre-heat train”. A typical crude pre-heat train is illustrated in Figure 1.

Pre-heat train fouling is estimated to cost around $1.2 billion per annum in the US alone (ESDU,
2000). In addition, savings in the use of non-reusable fuel will result in the reduction of CO2
emissions.
Causes of Fouling
Fouling rates in heat exchanger tubes have been found to be closely correlated to the asphaltenes
content of the crude oil. However, the paraffin and aromatics content of the crude oil, contamin-
ants such as iron sulphides, and trace heavy metals in petroleum derived heavy fractions also
appear to have considerable influence on precipitation rates. Dissolved oxygen, at trace levels,
can also have a noticeable impact on fouling.
The mechanism by which molecular masses and structures of the deposits relate to components
of the feed material, and the effect of time-temperature history on the chemical transformations
leading to deposit formation are still very poorly understood. Nevertheless, sufficient empirical
knowledge has been accumulated to mitigate fouling by adjusting the chemical composition of
the crude oil feedstock through addition of anti-fouling chemical additives, and judicious
feedstock blending.

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Fouling Mitigation
The physical and chemical mechanisms associated with crude-oil fouling are very complex,
which make effective application of mitigation methods difficult. Recent research suggests that
the main culprits are asphaltenes and iron sulfides, and that the fouling rate can be effectively
modeled as a competition between deposition (due to high temperature) and removal (due to
shear). Commercial mitigation techniques typically consist of using chemical additives (anti-
foulants), shear promotion (tube inserts, velocity control), and off-line cleaning (requires
temporary bypass of the HX being cleaned).

A promising approach to the crude oil fouling problem is to employ the threshold modeling
concept. Credible reports in the literature [e.g. Ebert and Panchal, 1995] indicate that above
critical values of the velocity (and hence wall shear stress), fouling does not occur.

Thus, in principle, heat exchangers can be designed to maintain the required levels of shear stress
to prevent fouling. In practice, complete elimination of fouling is almost certainly unobtainable.
Nevertheless, appropriate design could serve to minimise fouling rates or to achieve acceptable
asymptotic fouling levels. These levels would be set by pressure drop limitations or thermal

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performance requirements. Recent research has clearly demonstrated the potential of this
approach for the conventional shell-and tube heat exchanger, and preliminary results (still
confidential) on application of these methods to entire CDU preheat trains have been very
encouraging. The use of tube inserts and turbulence-promoting geometries to promote shear rates
has also been found to be quite effective.

Pinch Analysis and Fouling

About 25 years ago, Pinch Analysis emerged as a major advance in the state-of-the-art for
optimization of heat exchanger networks (HENs). Unfortunately, many refineries that retrofitted
their CDU trains using Pinch Analysis found to their chagrin that they experienced unexpected
problems with increased fouling. The benefits of higher heat recovery vanished quickly, as they
struggled to keep the exchangers clean. Why?

While Pinch Analysis is undoubtedly an extremely powerful tool for optimizing HEN stuctures,
it does have several limitations that are often not recognized and seldom disclosed. The tech-
nique was originally developed for non-fouling fluids, and this simplifying assumption is still
embedded in all the commercial software (with just one exception) as well as the methodology as
commonly practiced.

When fouling process fluids are involved, the technique invariably yields HEN designs with
undesirable operating characteristics – they are more difficult to control because of greater
process variability, incur higher maintenance costs (chemical additives, frequent cleaning), and
rapidly lose both capacity and energy efficiency between SOR and EOR. For fouling fluids, true
counter-current temperature gradients throughout the HEN are not necessarily optimum.

For refineries that process sweet light crudes, fouling is not a critical issue. However, these clean
easy-to-process crudes command a premium price on the market. Increasingly, many refineries
are choosing to difficult-to-process “opportunity” crudes to take advantage of significant price
discounts compared to benchmark crudes. For them, being able to successfully deal with fouling
becomes a matter of economic survival.

Effective design of minimal fouling HENs requires using the full arsenal of techniques at our
disposal, especially for processing of sour and heavy “opportunity” crudes:
• crude-oil blending to minimize fouling caused by asphaltene precipitation (solubility depends
upon paraffin and aromatic content as well)
• addition of chemicals to retard deposition of asphaltenes and iron sulfides

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 • use of tube inserts (eg. Turbotal®, hiTran ®) to promote shear rates
• revamping the HEN structure to keep tube wall temperatures below the fouling threshold
• retrofitting the HX bundle and channels (eg. twisted tubes, “E-to-F” conversions) to increase
velocities and shear rates
• replacement of Shell & Tube HX with alternative designs (eg. Compabloc®) that are inherently
resistant to fouling and easy to clean in place

Illustration of TwistedTube® Bundle Geometry

While there are excellent commercially available software packages that can certainly help with
rapid computation and analysis – Express®, Integrity®, Fluent®, etc – there is no “push-button”
software solution. The knowledge and judgment of an expert who understands fouling as well as
HX and HEN design is essential for a successful outcome.

Graphical Representation of Design Space for a S&T Heat Exchanger [from Express®]

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Optimum Feedstock Blending
Considerable progress has been made over the past 10 years in our ability to predict asphaltene
deposition using empirical models. Laboratory tests can be done to determine certain solubility
parameters of crude oil, and from this data it is possible to predict whether the oil blend will foul
or not in the CDU preheat train. Sample output from K&A’s predictive tool is shown below.

Such a tool would be of considerable value to companies that purchase opportunity crudes for
blending into the refinery feedstock. The tool can not only help with optimizing blending
decisions, but also with selecting the right type of crudes to purchase as blending stock that will
enable the refinery to process deeply discounted heavy/sour crudes with minimal downtime due
to fouling problems.

Benefits of Fouling Mitigation

The principal benefit is capacity. At one refinery in France, the increase in effective on-stream
time due to reduced fouling/cleaning was about 10 days/yr, which translates to about 3% extra
production. Even at modest refinery margins, the revenue improvement is huge.

A second benefit is energy cost savings. Reduced fouling rates mean higher average Furnace
Inlet Temperatures, which means lower fuel use in the reboiler (fired heater). The refinery may
also benefit from either selling or “banking” its carbon (GHG) emissions credits.

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The third benefit is maintenance cost savings, by reducing the frequency of heat exchanger
cleaning.

The estimated capacity and energy benefits for a typical 200 MBD refinery are shown below.

In a competitive marketplace, $10-20 MM/yr is an attractive carrot.

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