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    6 views4 pages

    Best Practices in Treating Liquefied Petroleum Gas Are Defined

    Uploaded by

    armostaan

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
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    bl oa sites Best practices in treating liquefied petroleum gas are defined Advantages of removing H,S before the LPG unit and energy optimization of the LPG splitter B. ARDALAN, M. KHORSAND MOVAGHAR and M. MALEKI, Eneray Industries Engineering and Design Consultant Company (EIED), his article presents the basic engineering design of a lique- Fied petroleum gas (LPG) recovery unicat the Khuzestan oil refinery; Iran, This refinery like other oil refineries, consists tof one LPG recovery unit. The feed to the LPG recovery unit comes from the different sources, The frst feed is from a catalytic ackinig reforming (CCR) unit chat is completely sweet with no H,S content. The second feed is from a hydrocracking unit chat is sour and has HLS content. The third feed comes from a stabilizer 1 the crude distillation unit (CDU) which is also sour and has HS and mereaptan contents, The LPG recovery unit in this project consists of two main separation sections including deethanizer and depropanizer col- A main product from this unit is propane from the top of the depropanizer section. This is routed to propane storage spherical tanks. The other main produce from this unit is butane, Bucane is routed from the depropanizer bottom to butane product spherical tunks. These products are blended at different ratios in differenc scisons depending on the demand. The byproduct from the top sec ion of che deethanizer is fuel gas and itis routed to a fuel gas unit. 4 seudy was performed on the effects of HS content of the ‘cod on the deethanizer design parameters. In addicion, operating pressure effects of the depropanizer column with regards to che clepropanizer’s condenser utility consumption were considered. The ecommended scheme for treating the LPG streams before recovery is illustrated in Fig, 1 Deethanizer. LPG feed from thtee sources is mixed in the feed surge drum and pumped to che deethanizer spliteer. The column's function, operating at 26 barg at the top, is to remove ethane as an overhead vapor stream and yield a botcom product contain- ing propane and heavier hydrocarbon products, The deethanizer column is designed to meet the specification of maximum C3 loss in the fuel gas at 7 wt%, The column overhead is cooled to 60°C i the avethead air cooler, then lowered ¢0 40°C in the overhead ‘undenser, Finally, the mixed phase is routed to the reflux drum. Jn the separator, the vapor phase includes lighter hydrocarbons (C2) which ate sent co the fuel gas unie asa byproduct. The liquid Phase is sent back to the top of the column with a reflux pump. "he liquid hydrocarbons recovered from the deethanizer bortom (C30) ate sent under level control, resetting a flow control valve lepropanizer section for further processing, Fig, 2 shows ns diagram for the deethanizer section of the Khuzestan oil ‘efinery's LPG recovery unit. Tehran, Iran Case studies. Process simulations were developed for the fol- lowing cases to study the effect of HyS content in the feed to che deethanizer column on the column design parameters, including condenser heat duty, reboiler, column diamec * Case 1. Sour feed is routed to the LPG recovery uni with the deethanizer column playing the role of HS removal. In this case, the design is performed based on 5 ppm of H,S content in the deethanizer bottom. * Case 2. Sour feed is routed to the deethanizer column and the design is accomplished on the basis of 300 ppm HS content in the deethanizee bottom. * Case 3. Treated feed enters the deethanizer column with no H,S concent. Process simulation. A simulation for Cases 1-3 was done for this study in the LPG recovery unit, using commercially aval- able software! Table 1 summarizes the simulation results of the deethanizer column design parameters for Cases 1-3. Assumed specifications in simulation include: * Condenser temperature is fixed at 40°C for all case studies due to refrigeration limitations in the plane. * Column optimum operating pressute is 27 bara in the top section of the splitter to meet all specfications—a pressure drop of 0,5 bar is considered between the top and bottom of the column, + C2/C3 ratio in the bottom of the deethanizer is set to a ‘maximum of 0.2 as one of the main cower design specifications. + Column trays are commercial sieve trays. Pion } Sabizer -—__ teaes | covoU nit |e veaang fuatgas i Unit een ; oi i Sandman || Carat i removal t : i ! Cyproue { testo -—_ reat | {Mount [Pavesi | “tre | | i vet sete i 6 trom Cc unit Caen eter SPECIALREPORT Discussion for C3 loss. C3 loss is defined as the tatio of pro pane mass flowrate in the distillate of the deethanizer column to propane mass flowrate of the feed entering the column. (C3 loss = propane flowrate in the kop stream of che deethanizer column/ propane flowrate in the feed to the deethanizer column). The main objective of this unic is to produce propane and butane and send them to spherical tanks to mix at required ratios. Therefore, C3 loss is critical factor in unit efficiency. Referring to Table 1, C3 loss in Cases Land 2 is much greater than that of Case 3, which is sweet Condenser and reboiler heat duty. As illustrated in Table 1, larger quantities of heat duties are required for the condenser and reboiler when running the deethanizer with sour Feed in Cases 1 and 2, as compared with the sweet feed in Case 3. Reflux rate (ton/hr). As shown in Table 1, the reflux race is increased from 11.7 in Case 3 to 27.7 in Case 2. Moreover, this rate is further increased to 81.7 in Case 1, which is poorly designed. Icis worth noting that by increasing the reflux rate, the column diameter must also increase ete fuel gas uit From LPG 22] treating unit ©. (UG trom HR) From LPG treating unit {6 from stabilizer) LPG from cc To fare header ‘To depropanizer column ey rer Number of trays. An cvaluation, as part of the C2 spliccer process design, was done to consider the effect of varying the umber of trays on the column heat duties. Results arc illustrated in Table 2, which includes a comparison of changing tray num- bers (increasing the number of trays in four steps) against the condenser and reboiler heat duties for sour cases. As shown in Table 2, increasing the number of trays results in a dectease in the columa heat duties. The reduction rate for Case 1, up to tray number 34, will be near 40% and more than. 34 will be less than 20%. While for Case 2 the reduction rate is rot considerable, and up to tray number 30 (only in che firs step) would be less than 20% However, by increasing the tray number to 34 ttays for sour 1, the heat duties were significantly ase 3. If he tray mumber increases 10 cases, especially for different from those of 40, there will bea slighe difference in the condenser and reboiler duties but it never approaches exactly to the parameters of the No added benefic when increasing the num: sweet case. Rest ber of trays over 34 From past experience, when the column diameter was between 2.m cod m, tray spacing needed to be atleast 400 mm. Hence, by increasing the tray number from 26 to 34, a corresponding height of 3.2 m was added to the column height. In other words, increas- ing the tray numbers requires a considerable rise in columa height and an inerease in cost, which is not an economical and optimum design. Therefore, the tray numbers, based on the sweet case, were set at 26 as an assumption for the simulation design Cost impact was due to: * Sour service. In Case 2, the whole unit material would have to be resistant to sour scrvice because there was 300 ppm HS in the LPG feed entering the C3 splitter. In Case 1, the deethanizer bottom product only had 5 ppm HS concent. [Fany malfunction in the deethanizer operation occurred, the unit material would be suitable for sour service. Thus, sour service requirements were considered for Cases 1 and 2, As a result, economically, Case 3 is the optimum case because it does nor require materials suitable for sour service. + Larger sizes. Referring to Table 1, the deethanizer column dia larger in Cases 1 and 2 compared to Case 3 in which the feed enters the column with no HS content. In addi- ‘ion, 2s shown in Table 1, in Cases 1 and 2, the column has three stages. Case 3 only has two stages. The additional stage of Cases 1 and 2 causes additional manufacturing and maintenance cost Thus, the smaller tower with fewer stages isthe result of treating the LPG before entering the LPG recovery unit Outlook. The major advantage of H,S removal before the LPG recovery unit is decreasing the heat ducies of the deethanizer Deethanizer column design parameters for Cases 1-3 Tray sizing Condenser duty Qe, MW Reboiler duty Qi. MW _C31055,% _Refluxrate, tomr__HySin bottom, ppm __ Stages _ Diameter, m Gat 72 Tze 38 a7 = T 728 (sour case) 2-20 335 21-26 35 case2 25 a1 13 na 300 14 sour case) 22 2326 cases i 67 36 W7 09 1 2.26 2.90 (sweet case) column's reboiler and condenser, which reduces the utility consumption. Another advantage of HS removal is that the maaimum diamerer of the deethanizer splitter—a main factor i column design—can be reduced by 0.6 m. Therefore, the condenser, reboiler and not needing sour service material results ins considerable reduction in cost and lower utilities. Depropanizer. The LPG stream from the bottom of the lccthunizer column is fed co che depropanizer, under flow control cascades with level control, at an operating pressure of 26.5 barg, tne column produces a propane stream as an overhead liquid praduct and a bottom stream containing butane, Butane is first sit-couled in a butane product air-cooler to 60°C: then cooled to 40 in the butane product trim cooler. The liquid butane act is routed to butane spherical storage tanks. p he ovethead propane gas is cooled in the depropanizer overheul condenser and totally condensed. The liquid propane prosiact is routed to the depropanizer reflux drum. Some liquid {as rethrs ratio) is returned by the depropanizer reflux pump as retluy 00 the top tray of the depropanizer. This is done under w control cascaded with the temperature conttol located on ver, The rest of the propane liquid is sent under level ‘setting low control by the propane transfer pumps to tie propane spherical storage unie at 40°C Case studies. Process simulation was developed for the fol- lis ing cases to study the effect of operating pressure of a column von the cooling water consumption of the condenser. Since the ‘cnperatute of the propane product routed to the spherical NE To are header To fuel gas sys. ® lt seethanizer column 3 Butane to storage ow Process flow diagram for depropanizer in Case 1 SPECIALREPORT tanks was 40°C (plant specification), two different cases were studied to achieve this temperature. * Case 1. Propane is routed to spherical tanks from the reflux drum with an operating temperature of 40°C. The related opti- mized operating pressure was achieved at 13 barg (at top) to meet the depropanizer design specifications. Fig, 3 illustrates the pro cess low diagram related to this case (the basic design was closed using this design code). * Case 2. No temperature limication was considered for the

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