Computers and Chemical Engineering Vol. 4, pp. 2512.

58
0 Pewmoo Press Ltd.. 1980. Printed in Great Britain

OPTIMAL WATER ALLOCATION IN A

PETROLEUM REFINERY

N. TAKAMA,T. KURIYAMA, K. SHIROKO and T. UMEDA

ChiyodaChemicalEngineeringand ConstructionCo., Ltd., Yokhama,Japan

(Received12 Ocfober 1979)

Abstract-A method for solving the planning problem of optimal water allocation is presented. All
the alternative systems are combined into an integrated system by employing structure variables or
split ratios at the point where a water stream is split into more than two streams. The values of
structure variables are determined for given process conditions so as to minimize the total cost,
subject to constraints derived from material balances and interrelationships among water-using units
and wastewater-treating units. The optimization problem is solved by using the Complex method.
The method is illustrated by its application to the water allocation problem in a petroleum refinery.

Scope-In the last decade, a number of studies on wastewater reuse or optimal designs of
wastewater-treating systems have been presented. Though those studies have received much
attention, they have been carried out exclusively on wastewater-treating systems without paying
attention to water-using systems. However, the authors’ extensive survey on the present status of
water use in a petroleum refinery has shown that there is enough room to reduce a huge amount of
both fresh water and wastewater. The reduction can be accomplished by optimizing water allocation
in a total system consisting of water-using units and wastewater-treating units. In this paper, the
problem of maximizing water reuse is considered as a problem of optimizing water allocation in a
total system. Furthermore, the problem of determining a system structure is defined as a parameter-
optimization problem by employing structure variables. Due to the approach, the difficulties
associated with combinatorial problems are resolved. A planning problem of water allocation is
discussed here under the assumption that process conditions are determined beforehand as the result
of optimization in a design problem.

Conemsions and SIgnhIcanc+The method is applied here to a simple but practical problem of
optimizing water allocation in a petroleum refinery. Since the problem is a large dimensional and
nonlinear problem with stringent inequality constraints, it is not practical to solve it by the exclusive
use of mathematical programming methods. In this paper, the problem is transformed into a series of
problems without inequality constraints by employing penalty function. In the course of optimiza-
tion, a sequence of non-feasible points is generated. Therefore, difficulties associated with an initial
search for feasible points are omitted and a feasible point is yielded by modifying the penalty
function successively. The Complex method is, in general, inefficient in searching for an optimal
point because of the premature termination on a nearly flat surface. However, the premature
termination is avoided by reducing a system structure successively according to the intermediate
results of optimization.

INTRODUCTION system approaches. The detailed review on these studies

Water has been used in abundant quantities by chemical,
petrochemical, petroleum refining and other process in-
dustries. However, in recent years, the increased cost of
wastewater treatment to meet environmental require-
ments and the scarcity of less expensive industrial water
have provided process industries with strong incentive to
minimize the amount of water consumption and waste-
water discharge. The major concern is to emphasize the
importance of water reuse and a number of efforts have
been made towards achieving the goal of extensive water
reuse in various process industries.
There have been presented many ideas for wastewater
recovery and reuse in the petroleum refining industry [ l-
51. These papers have exclusively described wastewater-
treating systems for the realization of zero discharge. As
for the optimal design methods for wastewater-treating
systems, several attempts have also been made by using
was made by Mishra et al.[6]. Much information on the
optimization studies on process units for wastewater
treatment can be acquired from this survey. In addition,
there have been significant developments of the methods
for processing system synthesis, such as those of heat
exchangers and separation systems. A method of utiliz-
ing the system structure variables[7] is considered to be
useful to eliminate difficulties due to combinatorial prob-
lems. The studies presented so far, however, only cover
wastewater treating systems. The amount of wastewater
was given beforehand and its reduction was not taken
into consideration. As far as the authors know, the
optimal design problem including water reuse for the
total system consisting of water-using system and was-
tewater-treating system has not yet been solved.
The authors have carried out an extensive study on the
present status of water use in a typical petroleum

CACE Vol. 4. No. 4-D

251
252
refinery[8]. As the result, it has been shown that there is
enough room to reduce a large amount of wastewater by
maximizing water reuse and wastewater recovery. Fur-
ther increase in the efficiency of water use can be expec-
ted by the change of process conditions in the refinery.
In solving such large complex problems, it has been
found expedient to use a two-level approach.
The two-level approach starts with decomposing the
original large-scale and complex optimization problem
into several smaller subproblems, and allocating func-
tions of decision making for upper and lower levels,
respectively. On the lower level, each subproblem is
independently optimized for given condition at each step
of iterations. Those conditions are determined on the
upper level so as to optimize the preset objective func-
tion combining the objective functions of subproblems.
Those problem and subproblems correspond to the
problems on the planning and the design levels, respec-
tively. For the system associated with water use and
wastewater treatment, the overall optimization problem
can be devided into two problems. One is to determine
the optimal allocation of water to water-using and was-
tewater-treating units. The other is to determine optimal
process conditions in those units for a given water al-
location. The problem of optimizing water allocation
corresponds to the planning problem on the upper level
and the problem of optimizing process conditions in
those units corresponds to the design problem on the
lower level. In this paper, the planning problem is solved
under the assumption that the process conditions are
given beforehand.
STATRMENT OF PROBLEM
In general, a system associated with water use in a
petroleum refinery consists of two subsystems as shown
in Fig. 1; one where water is used for petroleum refining
and the other where wastewater is treated for reuse or
TREATED
NON -TREATED
WATER
FRESH WATER
- USING
SUBSYSTEM
Fig. I. System for refinery water use and treatment.
0 WATER
m WASTEWATER
Fig. 2. General system structure for refinery water use and treatment.
N. TAKAMA et al.
discharge to the environment on the basis of the total
system, the water reuse policy has to be determined so
as to minimize the sum of the costs of fresh water and
wastewater treatment. The amount of water used in a
water-using subsystem is closely connected with the
performance of the subsystem. Therefore, it is not ap-
propriate to decrease the amount of water used in the
water-using subsystem only from the viewpoint of water
saving. As described in the preceding section, the
amount of water used in the water-using subsystem is
determined on the design level. The optimization prob-
lem considered here is to select the best system among
all alternative systems.
Figure 2 shows the general structure of the system
under consideration, Among N subsystems, the sub-
systems 1 and N are an imaginary input and an output
subsystems, respectively. The imaginary input subsystem
is a source of fresh. water supplied to any subsystem.
The imaginary output subsystem is a final holding basin
which collects wastewater from all other subsystems and
discharges it to the environment. Each subsystem has a
mixing point and splitting point. A flow from any splitting
point is directed to any other mixing point.
The overall problem is defined as to determine both
design variables of subsystems and structure variables in
such a way that a given objective function is optimized.
Mathematically the synthesis problem under con-
sideration is defined as follows:
Minimize N
Isi, dij 3 fitui, vi, di,&)
subject to
(2)
WATER
Ui =
c=I
Sij ’ Vj (3)
WATER
. WASTEWATER
DISCHAKE
. TREATING
SUBSYSTEM
USING SUBSYSTEM
TREATING SUeSYSTEM
 Optimal water allocation in a petroleum refinery 253

OBJECTIVEFUNCTION
2 &j = 1 For the present problem of optimizing water al-
location, the objective function expressing the total
hi(Ui, Vi, di) 2 0 (9 annual cost is defined by
0 s 6, 5 1 (6) N-l N-l

(i= 1, . . . . N,j=l,..., N)
x
C=h i=M+I Cui +x
i=M+l
C,j+ C,. (17)

where ui and vi are the input and output state vectors of
the ith subsystem, respectively. di is a design vector of
the ith subsystem and Sij is a split ratio from the jth
subsystem to the ith subsystem. Equation (2) expresses
the behavior of the ith subsystem. Equations (3) and (4)
are material balance relationships at mixing and splitting
points, respectively. Inequality constraints (5) and (6) are
imposed to define an admissible region. The problem
defined by Eqs. (l)-(6) is reformulated by decomposing
into the planning and design problems along the line
described in the preceding section.
Planning problem: to optimize the allocation of water
for given design variables of subsystems.
The first and second terms on the r.h.s. are the annual
return on investment and the operating cost for the
wastewater treating system, respectively. The constant A
involved in the first term denotes a factor associated with
the rate of return on investment. The last term in Eq. (17)
is the cost for fresh water.
SYSTEM MODEL
The system models expressing the behavior of the
water-using and wastewater-treating subsystems are
described by the following Eqs. (18) and (19). The water
balance for the ith subsystem is represented by

Minimize N Qi = ,g &jQj (i = 2,. . . , N) (18)

{Sijldi*} z fi(% vit di*, &j) (7)
where Qi is the flow rate of effluent stream from the ith
subject to
subsystem. The amount of water used in each refining
Vi = gi(di*, Ui) process is determined beforehand, as described in the
(8)
preceding section. The flow rates of efauent stream from
Ui=$ &j’Vj
the subsystem, Qi’s (i = 2,. . . , M), are given constants in
Eq. (18), where A4 denotes the number of water-using
subsystems including the imaginary input subsystem. The
$ sij = l mass balance relationship of the kth pollutant in the
effluent stream from the ith pollutant in the effluent stream
hi(Xi,yi, di*) 2 0 (11) from the ith subsystem is given by
0 I &j I 1 (12)
Qi’~~=(l-r;*),~($.Qj.~;*)tPi (19)
(i=l,..., N, j=l,..., N)
(i = 2,. . . , N, k = 1,. . . , K)
where di*‘S are given as a solution of the design problem
on the lower level. where Pi” and ri“ respectively, are the rate of generation
Design problem: to optimize process conditions for the and the removal ratio of the kth pollutant at the ith
ith subproblem for a given water allocation. subsystem. In the planning problem, the values for these
parameters are assumed to be constant. In addition, since
pollutants are generated in water-using subsystems and
(13)
are removed in wastewater-treating subsystems, the fol-
lowing conditions are derived.
subject to
Pi“=O, Pik=O(i=M+l,..., N,k=l,..., K) (20)
vi = gi(di, ni) (14)
r,“=O, r/‘=O(i=l,..., M,-k=l,..., K). (21)
Ui=f &j*‘Vj (19
,=I
Moreover, the feed stream to each subsystem has to
hi(xi, yipdi) 2 0 (16) satisfy the quality acceptable for the purposes such as
petroleum refining and wastewater treatment. In parti-
for i = 1, . . . , N, where &*‘S are given as a solution of cular, the feed water to the imaginary output subsystem
the planning problem on the upper level. should satisfy the current national or local discharge
The present paper is confined to the planning problem regulations. In this connection, the following constraint
of optimizing water allocation under the assumption that associated with the kth pollutant is imposed on each
the process conditions of subsystems are given before- influent stream to the ith subsystem:
hand. The problem considered here is not so large in
scale as to require the linearization for the use of linear
programming method such as in the case of overall
refinery planning. However, the integration of many (22)
alternative systems makes the problem too complex to
(i = 2,. . . , N, k = 1,. . . , K)
carry out nonlinear simulation. Therefore, a nonlinear
objective function and linearized system models are where zik is the limitation for the concentration of the
employed here. kth pollutant in the stream influent to the ith subsystem.
254
SOLUTION h5’ROD
In order to solve the optimization problem, the simu-
lation of the total system should be carried out by using
the system models described above. In the case of
lineal&d models, computation can be performed with
relative ease. By using matrix notation, Eqs. (20) and (21)
are represented below.
r pIki
When the value of 8, is given, Eq. (23) can be easily
solved to obtain the values of dependent variables, Qi, by
using the Gauss elimination method. In Eq. (24), the
value of .r: is obtained for given values of &j, Qivrf and
Pi”. Those values have to satisfy the inequality con-
straints defined by Eq. (22). However, the inequality
constraints are stringent in the problem considered here.
Therefore, it is practical to transform the problem into a
-.-.Oplimizatian by .-.-
Complex method
Fig. 3. Computational procedure for optimization.
N. TAKAMA et al.
sequence of modified problems without the inequality
constraints by introducing a penalty and by reducing a
system structure successively.
The penalty is defined by
(25)
where pik is zero if the inequality constraint defined by
Eq. (22) is satisfied, and unity otherwise. By adding the
penalty, the objective function becomes
F=Cta.p (26)
where C is the total annual cost defined by Eq. (19). a is
a weighting parameter successively increased from
iteration to iteration. It can be shown theoretically that,
as a +m, an unconstrained optimum of F will cor-
. respond to a constrained optimum of C[9].
For a given value of the parameter, a, the minimiza-
tion of the objective function is carried out by using the
Complex method. Since a sequence of non-feasible
points is generated in the course of optimization, an
initial search for a feasible point can be omitted. When a
(24 convergence is obtained by using the Complex method,
the reduction of a system structure is made on the basis
of the result. That is, streams with negligibly small flow
rates are automatically eliminated. Then, the value of
parameter, a, is increased and the minimization of a
modified objective function is carried out for a reduced
system structure. By repeating these procedures, a
feasible solution is obtained. The computational pro-
cedure of the method is shown in Fig. 3. Since the
detailed description on the Complex method has already
been made elsewhere[lO] by one of the authors, the
further description is not made here.
Modify the pafo-
F
meter dll*l)
Reduwthe@em
structure
YeI
-.-.-
piI
 Optimalwater allocationin a petroleum refinery 25s

lLLUSl’RATtVEEXAMPLE foul water, stripping unit, an oil separating unit, and a

The planning problem of optimizing water allocation in
a petroleum refinery is considered here as a simple but
practical example. The system consists of three water-
using and three wastewater-treating subsystems. The
water-using subsystems include nearly all processes in
the refinery. One subsystem consists of various proces-
ses in which steam is used. This subsystem requires
strict quality of supplied water and discharges oily was-
tewater with a slight contamination. Another subsystem
consists of hydrodesulfurizing processes in which in-
jection water is used. This subsystem requires mild qual-
ity of supplied water and discharges oily wastewater with
considerable hydrogen sulfide. The third subsystem is a
desalter included in a crude distillation unit. This sub-
system requires mild quality of supplied water and dis-
charges oily wastewater with a slight contamination.
Three major pollutants such as hydrogen sulfide, oil, and
suspended solid are dealt with in the wastewater-treating
subsystem which consists of the following processes: a
coagulating, sedimentating, and filtrating unit.
Numerical computations are carried out by using the
result of the aforesaid study on water use in a petroleum
refinery. The total amount of water required by the
water-using subsystems involves 85% of the total
refinery water excluding cooling water and heating
steam. Since cooling water and heating steam are com-
monly reused with or without a simple treatment, they
are not considered here. In the application of the
method, it is practical to rule out meaningless streams
such as a fresh water stream directed to a wastewater-
treating subsystem and a recycling stream around a
single subsystem.
For the specified conditions presented in Table 1,
optimal values of split ratios are determined so as to
minimize the annual cost of the system. However, some
of the ratios are dependent variables because the water
requirement of each water-using subsystem is given
beforehand. The optimal result is shown in Table 2,

Table l(a). Specifiedconditionsfor optimization

-
SUBSYSTEM DATA (1)

water flow Pollutant generation Pollutant limitation

rate rate [ton/hrl [Ppnl
[ton/hr] (H2S) (Oil) (SS) (H2S) (Oil) (SS)

@Fresh water source l

0 Steam strippers 45.8 0.0179 0.0005 0.0012 0 0 0

@HDS high pressure 32.7 0.536 0.0033 0.0005 500 20 50

sections

@ Deealter 56.5 0.0013 0.0057 0.0020 20 120 50

Note 1) * : Not specified

2) Fresh water contains no pollutant.

Table l(b). Specifiedconditionsfor optimization

SUBSYSTEM DATA (2)
water flow rate Removal ratio Pollutant limitation
Subsystem name Lton/hrl [%I LPpnl
(H2S) (Oil) 6s) (H2S) (Oil) (SS)

@ Foul water stripper l 99.9 0 0

@ oil separator * 0 95 20

@ Coagulating, sedi- t 90 90 97
mentatin, .5
Filtrating units

@ Final basin of l _ _ 2 2 5
wastewater

Note 1) l : Not specified

2) Fresh water contains no pollutant
256 N. TAKAMAet al.

Table l(c). Specified conditions for optimization

ECONOMIC DATA

Annual rate Of return [al 13.15

operating hour [hr/yearl 8,000

Subsystem cost InvestnlentCOst IS1 operatinb cat IS/hrl

0 16,800 x Q".7 1.0 XQ

0 4,800 x Qoe7 0

0 12,600 x Q"'7 0.0067 x Q

Utility cost

IS/ton1 0.30

Table 2. Comparison of optimal and conventional cases

optima1 case Conventional case

Objective function [103S/year1 707 1,550

Investment COst l103$1 676 1,060

Operating cost [103S/year1 371 1,087

Fresh water cost I103S/yearl 246 323

Pollutant in supplied [ppm] (H2S) (Oil) GS) (H2S) (Oil) ISS)

water to subsystem

0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0 390.0 10.0 25.0 0 0 0

0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0 0 0

v 2.0 1.9 0.9 0.4 0.4 0.6

@ (TON/HRI

P-l 32.7

Fig. 4. Optimal flow scheme.

together with the result of the conventional case. The
flow schemes for the optimal and the conventional cases
are shown in Figs. 4 and 5, respectively. The computing
time to obtain an optimal solution is about 4Oseconds by
the IBM S370/158-U35 machine.
The application of the method has given great im-
provements as shown below:
l The annual cost is decreased by about 55% of that
for the conventional case.
l The fresh water requirement is decreased by about
24% that for the conventional case.
0 Water reuse is practiced without any treatment so as
to reduce the amount of fresh water and wastewater.
0 Water is treated by less expensive treatments rather
than expensive treatment so as to reduce the cost for
wastewater treatment.
The result of example shows that it is possible to
minimize the sum of costs for fresh water and for
wastewater treatment by using the method.
 Optimal water allocation in a petroleum refinery 251

Fig. 5. Conventional flow scheme.

Table 3. Process of convergence

cost Weight for NO. of

Iteration
IS/year1 Penalty streams

549 x 103 a 29

657 3.26 5 *(I 24

740 0.308 52 .a 23

822 0.224 53 *a 20

797 0.0442 54 *cx 17

906 0.0118 55 *LY 16

886 0.00003 56 .a 14

854 0.0247 57 *a 14

710 0.0 58 .a 12

707 0.0 59 *a 10

707 0.0 51O.a 10

707 0.0 511.a 10

Note 1) Penalty is defined by Equation(25).

2) (I = 1.0 x 1016

DISCUS!SlON results obtained for the previous values of a. Initial

Since the constraints associated with the problem
considered here are quite stringent, the problem is trans-
formed into a sequence of unconstrained problems by
introducing a penalty function. As shown in Table 3, the
method generates a non-feasible sequence of search
points in the course of optimization. Due to the non-
feasible approach, difficulties associated with an initial
search for feasible points are avoided. The penalty
prevents the search points from getting too far from the
feasible region. Furthermore, the method yields a feasi-
ble solution by increasing successively the weighting
parameter of the penalty denoted by a in Eq. (26). While
the value of parameter, a, is relatively small, the solution
is sought in favor of minimizing the cost rather than
minimizing the penalty. On the contrary while a is
relatively large, the solution is sought so as to minimize
the penalty and finally to obtain a feasible solution.
Moreover, the successive use of the penalty is com-
bined with the successive reduction of a system struc-
ture. This reduction is accomplished by the automatic
elimination of negligible streams so as to reflects the
points for the next iteration are generated arbitrarily on
the basis of the reduced structure. The search for an
optimal point is carried out by using the Complex
method. The Complex method is, in general, inefficient
because the simplex formed with search points is con-
tracted for the search on a nearly flat surface. However,
the successive reduction of system structure prevents
the search by using the Complex method from premature
termination.
Complex and huge-dimensioned problems such as the
problem described here have generally a multi-modal
characteristic. For such cases, direct search methods
including the Complex method cannot always obtain a
globally optimal solution. The global optimal point can be
sought by repeating a number of computations starting
from different initial points.
Acknowledgement-The authors would like to acknowledge
Chiyoda Chemical Engineering and Construction Co., Ltd. for the
support of the present study and the permission to publish this
paper.
258 N. et al.
TAKAMA

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