SEPARATORS: INTRODUCTION

Separators play an important role in the chemical industry and are critical to the success of almost all
processes. The usage of phase separators range from functions as diverse as ensuring that final product
quality meets often stringent standards to protecting downstream equipment from undesirable impurities.
In the petrochemical industry the most common uses include:

Separation of liquid hydrocarbon from a hydrocarbon vapour (2-phase vapour liquid separation)

Separation of a two liquids differing in their respective densities (2-phase, liquid liquid separation)

Separation of a feed stream consisting of vapour, liquid hydrocarbon and water into 3 separate
components. (3-phase separation).

Some examples of separators are as follows:

2-Phase Separators

3-Phase Separators

Fuel gas KO drum

Glycol Separator

Compressor KO drum

Hydrotreater high pressure separator

Relief gas KO drum

Wet column reflux drum

Crude unit desalter

Production separator

Amine absorber KO drum

Coalescer units
This design guide presents the basic principles and methods involved with sizing vertical and horizontal
separators for both 2-phase and 3-phase separation. It is important to note, however, that this guide does
not cover the separation of solids from either liquids or vapour.

Whilst theoretically, it may be important to take into consideration dynamic operating conditions of the
separation process, such as variation in fluid properties with time; and the transient start-up and shutdown characteristics of separation operation when undertaking the design, this presents a near impossible
task in reality. As such, this design guide uses steady-state operation of the separator as its basis.