Optimization of Distillation Process

Ahmed Sadeq Abdo Esmail AL-DUBAI/ 20520012

Yıldız Teknik Üniversitesi, Kimya ve metalürji Fakültesi, Kimya Müh. Bölümü,
Yıldız-İSTANBUL

1. Introduction

Separation is widely applied in the process industry, and typically follows reaction processes to
separate desirable products and by-products from reaction effluents. There are many ways of
separation. In this chapter, we mainly deal with product distillation or fractionation, which forms
the majority of the separation processes in the process industry [1].

Energy costs are the largest percentage of a hydrocarbon plant’s operating expenditures. This is
especially true of the distillation process, which requires substantial energy consumption.
Concerns over recent high costs and economic pressures continually emphasise the need for
efficient distillation design and operation without a loss of performance [1].

Distillation is the core of a process unit and also the major energy user. The design and operation
of distillation columns involves a trade-off between energy use and product recovery. When
energy usage is less than design, product recovery and quality may suffer. On the other hand, when
energy is more than design, product quality is better than the specification, which is called product
spec giveaway. In abnormal operations, little product recovery can be achieved regardless of how
much energy is used [1].

However, reducing energy usage in a distillation system is not straightforward. This is because a
distillation system involves many operating parameters including those within and outside the
process battery limit. In particular, variations in conditions of feed and products as well as prices
of feeds and products add much complexity to the economic operation of the process. This feature
leads to strong dynamic behaviors of operating parameters. Furthermore, most of the parameters
interact in a nonlinear manner and have numerous constraints on their operation, which further
complicate the task of process optimization. If some of the constraints can be relaxed, this could
improve operating margins significantly [1].
 2. TOWER OPTIMIZATION BASICS

Tower optimization is a difficult task as product pricing and unit constraints often change daily or
weekly, but changing unit operating philosophy and addressing hardware constraints can take
weeks or even months to accomplish. Even after the measures to improving optimal performance
have been identified and implemented, if the desire to improve is declining, operation tends to
return to the older, more comfortable routine. Thus, it is highly recommended that for a complex
system, performance optimization should be implemented in advanced process control (APC),
which can maintain tower operation under the most economic mode on a regular and consistent
basis and in an automatic manner.

3. Key Operating Parameters

3.1 Reflux Ratio

Reflux ratio is defined as the ratio of reflux rate to distillate rate (R/D) or the reflux rate to feed
rate (R/F). In essence, a reflux rate is to set a tower top temperature required for making the
distillate (overhead product) to meet specification. Furthermore, reflux rate provides sufficient
internal liqued flow to balance the vapor flow in the tower. Reflux is generated by energy either
via tower reboiler or feed heater. Lower reflux rate saves energy, but too low reflux rate could
affect product quality. On the other hand, too high reflux rate could be wasting of energy if product
quality is better than the specifications. In this case, the quality that is better than the specification
is given away for free because there is no credit in pricing for the extra better quality [1].

Optimal reflux rate in operation depends on the operating margin, which is defined as the
difference of product sales minus feed cost and energy cost. When energy cost is too high, it could
drive the operation toward lower reflux rate and vice versa for the case of lower energy cost [1].

In tower design, the optimal reflux ratio is determined based on the trade-off between operating
cost in the reboiler and capital cost for the tower. In other words, use of more separation stages
requires less reflux rate and in turn less reboiling energy, but at the expense of additional capital
cost. The minimum reflux ratio is calculated based on Underwood (1948). A tower requires an
infinite number of stages to achieve the minimum reflux ratio. To make the tower feasible in
operation and affordable in cost, a reflux ratio larger than the minimum is used. The typical reflux
ratio is 1.1–1.3 of the minimum reflux ratio. With a high reflux ratio, the number of theoretical
stages is lower resulting in lower capital cost for a tower, but at the expense of higher reboiler duty
[1].

3.2 Pressure
Lower pressure typically saves energy. This is because the lower the tower pressure the less heat
required for liquid to vaporize and thus less energy required. This results in better fractionation as
it is easier for vapor to penetrate liquid on the tray deck. The condenser pressure controls the tower
pressure and thus the feed tray pressure. There is a pressure valve in the overhead, which can be
used to control tower pressure. The lower limit of the tower pressure is defined by the column
overhead condensing duty, net gas compressor capacity, and column flood condition. During
extended turndown periods, reducing pressure up against an equipment limit can avoid dumping.
Many of the new APC systems have pressure control implemented. Heat exchanger fouling in
overhead condensers could cause higher pressure to drop and thus result in high tower pressure.
On the other hand, higher reflux rate could lead to high pressure drop in the overhead loop causing
high tower pressure [1].

3.3 Feed Temperature

A hotter feed can increase feed vaporization and thus reduce reboiling duty. However, higher
temperature feed could cause too much vapor resulting in rectification section flooding. For an
existing tower, the optimal feed temperature corresponds to the lowest reboiling duty, while the
tower can meet product specifications [1].

4. Strategies for improving the distillation energy network.

As continuous distillation requires simultaneous heat input and removal (thus requiring significant
energy consumption), complex heat integration becomes more common for modern distillation
units to improve unit energy efficiency. Since a distillation column’s degree of separation and
enthalpy balance influence each other, it is critical to evaluate and optimize the distillation column
and heat exchanger networks together to maximize plant economics.

There are numerous strategies to improve the energy efficiency of distillation processes, with the
amount of improvement through each strategy varied according to process conditions. The
following are common strategies that can be applied to practical energy improvement projects [2].

4.1 Feed temperature

Feed temperature is a major factor influencing the overall heat balance of a distillation column
system. Increments in the feed enthalpy can help reduce the required energy input from the reboiler
at the same degree of separation. Installing a feed preheater is a very common process option to
minimize reboiler heat duty. If the feed preheater can be integrated with other valuable process
streams (as a heating medium), overall energy efficiency of the distillation system can be improved
further. However, increasing the feed temperature does not always improve the overall energy
efficiency of a distillation unit. Excessive feed temperature increments can cause a significant
amount of flash of heavy key and non-key components at the distillation column feed zone. In this
case, a higher amount of reflux stream is necessary to maintain required overhead distillate purities.
This augmented reflux ratio thus requires a higher boil-up ratio. Overall energy efficiency is
eventually aggravated.1 Therefore, careful review of the feed temperature and phase is critical to
minimizes the overall energy consumption of the distillation unit [2].

4.2 Feed location

Improper feed location of a distillation column can also increase the reflux/boil-up ratio and energy
consumption. An ideal feed location is a section of the distillation column where the composition
of column internal liquid traffic is similar to feed stream composition. In this case, the composition
gradient between feed stream and distillation internal fluids is minimized. In actual operation of
the distillation column, feed compositions are often changed from the original design conditions.
In cases of significant deviation, discrepancy between column internal liquid composition and feed
stream composition can increase, which results in a non-optimum feed location. Therefore,
evaluating feed location is an essential step for successful distillation unit energy improvement [2].

4.2.1 Selection the optimum feed location

Introducing feed at the wrong location causes the trays around the feed entrance to operate
inefficiently. The degree of separation is decreased at the same reflux to boil-up ratio. Usually, the
column is designed for a specified feed composition. If the feed composition changes due to
sourcing the feed from different suppliers or changes in performance of the upstream facilities,
column separation performance gets impacted. In such situations, process simulation modeling
needs to be carried out to arrive at the new feed tray location [2].
Key ratio plotting is another useful tool to evaluate optimum feed location. The key ration is
usually expressed as the ratio of light keys to heavy keys. The optimum feed location can be
graphically selected through a chart of key ratio versus the stage number. The optimum feed stage
is that where the key ratio in the liquid or vapor (depending on whether the feed is liquid or vapor)
is close to the key ratio of the feed stream (figure 1) [4].

Figure 1. Plot of key ratio of feed in the liquid stream at various stages

4.3 Column operating pressure

Relaxation of the column top operating pressure decreases the distillation column’s temperature
profile and results in a lower reboiler duty. It has been observed that numerous commercial
distillation columns have been operated with lower operating pressures than their original design
values. However, this strategy is not applicable to columns operated under an atmospheric pressure
range. Column overhead circuit pressure drop and condenser temperature approaches both heavily
influence feasibility. In addition, column pressure reduction expands vapor traffic and pushes the
limits of existing distillation equipment [2].
 Figure 2. reflux versus number of plates at different pressure.

4.4 Column pressure drop

Reducing column pressure drop can lower reboiler duty at the same degree of separation. The
amount of reboiler duty saving relies on operating pressure and enthalpy balance. This strategy is
generally feasible when the distillation column is operated under vacuum pressure range.
Meanwhile, pressure drop improvement does not often provide noticeable energy savings in high-
pressure range distillation service [2].
5. Case study

Let us consider propane – propylene splitter in a refinery. The objective of the optimization is to
reduce utilities cost by using optimal reflux quantity while maintaining top and bottom products
quality. By using any process simulation tool such as CHEMCAD, pro ll, Aspen plus, we can
create the flowsheet.
In the simulation system, the feed and the product flows and composition must be kept constant.
We only vary the column pressure and see the changes in the reflux flow.
Results presented in the table 3. shows how the change in column operating pressure is impacting
the reflux flow requirement. As the column pressure is decreased, the reflux flow decreases. Also,
as the reflux flow is decreased, the reboiler duty and condenser duty decreases.
Table 1. Feed stage values.
Feed conditions Value
Feed temperature C 25
Feed pressure, bar 25
Total feed flow 9205
Propane, kg/h 500 (5.43%)
Propylene, kg/h 8705 (94.56%)

Table 2. Operating data

Column top/bottom pressure, Bar 24.5/25.5

Feed pressure, Bar 25

Feed temperature, C 25

Distillate purity 0.995

Propylene at bottom 0.05

Table 3. optimization results

Pressure, Reflux ratio Boil up ratio Condenser Reboiler Top temp, C
bar duty, MW duty, MW

25 9.119 213.941 6.1780 6.4470 58.17

20 7.688 177.75 5.9227 6.1068 48.5

19 7.477 176.84 5.9105 6.0765 46.13

18 7.276 175.94 5.8986 6.0462 43.68

17 7.083 175.03 5.8871 6.0157 41.12

References

[1] Zhu, F. X. X. (2015). Energy and process optimization for the process industries. Wiley.

[2] SOUN HO LEE, GTC Technology. (2013, October 1). Improving the distillation energy
network. Digital Refining. https://www.digitalrefining.com/article/1000855/improving-the-
distillation-energy-network#.YL9EOvkzbIU.

[2] Cui, C., Liu, S., & Sun, J. (2018). Optimal selection of operating pressure for distillation
columns. Chemical Engineering Research and Design, 137, 291-307.

[4] Examples Of Mislocated Feeds - Structured Packings. (2021, January 1). Buffalo Brewing
Blog. https://www.buffalobrewingstl.com/structured-packings/info-xcm.html.