Accepted Manuscript

Title: Distillation without hot utilities; development of novel

distillation configurations for energy and costs saving

Authors: Abolghasem Kazemi, Arjomand

Mehrabani-Zeinabad, Masoud Beheshti

PII: S0255-2701(17)30518-4
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cep.2017.10.027
Reference: CEP 7111

To appear in: Chemical Engineering and Processing

Received date: 24-5-2017

Revised date: 5-10-2017
Accepted date: 31-10-2017

Please cite this article as: Abolghasem Kazemi, Arjomand Mehrabani-Zeinabad,

Masoud Beheshti, Distillation without hot utilities; development of novel
distillation configurations for energy and costs saving, Chemical Engineering and
Processing https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cep.2017.10.027

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 Distillation without hot utilities; development of novel

distillation configurations for energy and costs saving

Abolghasem Kazemi1, Arjomand Mehrabani-Zeinabad1,*, Masoud Beheshti2,3

1
Department of Chemical Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran,

8415683111

2
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran, 8174673441

3
Process Engineering Institute, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran, 8174673441

Corresponding Author Email and Tel: arjomand@cc.iut.ac.ir , +983133915609

Graphical Abstract

1
Highlights:

 =====================================================================
 Novel configurations of distillation are proposed to reduce energy requirements.
 The proposed models utilize cooling water as the sole source of thermal energy.
 Performances of the proposed systems are compared to other alternatives.
 Significant reduction in energy requirements was achieved using proposed models.
 =====================================================================

Abstract: Distillation with vapor recompression (VRC) has received much attention in recent

years as a technology for enhancing energy efficiency of distillation systems. Various

configurations of vapor recompression were proposed in previous studies. A novel system is

proposed that utilizes the same concepts, distillation without hot utilities (DWHU). In a DWHU

system, water at normal temperatures is the sole source of thermal energy for distillation. In this

paper, a set of novel DWHU configurations are proposed and their energy and economic

performances are presented and compared with previous systems such as conventional

distillation column and VRC. Seven configurations (including five DWHU configurations) were

studied for separation of a propylene/propane mixture. From both energy and economic points of

view, it has been revealed that the newly proposed DWHU configuration can outperform

conventional distillation, VRC and base DWHU systems.

Keywords: Distillation; Energy; Vapor recompression; DWHU; Distillation without hot utilities.

1. Introduction

Feed purification, reaction and products separation are the main sections of most of chemical

processes [1]. A large fraction of consumed energy in these processes is for separation of

chemicals. Various technologies can be used for separation of chemicals including membrane

2
systems [2-5], extraction [6, 7], recrystallization and distillation [8, 9]. Despite having low

thermodynamic efficiency, distillation is still the most common technology for separation of

chemicals. On the basis of characteristics of the materials, various types of distillation were

developed including azeotropic distillation [10, 11], extractive distillation [8, 12, 13], reactive

distillation [14] and hybrid pervaporation distillation [15, 16].

One of the key characteristics of the components affecting energy consumption of distillation

systems is the difference between boiling point of key components [17, 18]. For systems with

large boiling point difference (i.e. wide-boiling systems), distillation process can be carried out

rather easily, otherwise (i.e. close-boiling systems), separation of components is difficult by

simple distillation [17, 18]. Various systems have been developed for enhancing energy

efficiency of close-boiling distillation systems including heat pump assisted distillation [19, 20],

distillation with vapor recompression (VRC) [21-23] and internally heat integrated distillation

columns (iHIDiC) [24-27]. These three systems utilize the same basic principles. Conventional

distillation columns are composed of stripping and rectifying sections. Generally, in stripping

section, the system requires to gain thermal energy (QH) to provide required boil up for the

column (usually a reboiler is used). In rectifying section, the system requires to reject thermal

energy (QC) to provide required column reflux (usually a condenser is used). In both VRC and

iHIDiC, the main idea is to utilize QC of the rectifying section for providing required QH for the

stripping section. But temperature of rectifying section of the column is lower than stripping

section. Thus, additional equipment such as compressors are required in the two systems.

iHIDiCs transfer thermal energy from rectifying to stripping section in a series of distillation of

columns, while VRC uses a single stage of heat transfer.

3
Numerous studies were dedicated to introducing new configurations and/or comparing various

configurations of these systems [21, 22, 28]. For instance, Waheed et al. [21], Kazemi et al. [28],

Long and Lee [29] and Matsuda et al. [30] proposed novel configurations of VRC, based on

addition of heat transfer stages to the system. Kumar et al. [31], Asprion et al. [32] and Jana and

Mane [33] proposed a new configurations of VRC based on intermediate reboilers. Johri et al.

[34] studied performance of VRC system on a batch process. Also, Xu et al. [35], Shi et al. [36]

and Feng et al. [37] studied systems based on VRC and dividing wall column. For the propylene-

propane separation system, Olujic et al. [38] introduced a system based on internally heat

integrated distillation concepts and Alcantara et al. [39] investigated various intensified

propylene-propane distillation systems.

Simplified process flow diagrams of VRC, distillation with external heat pump (EHP) and heat

integrated distillation column are shown in Figure 1[19, 40, 41]. The main idea in these systems

is to provide the possibility of transferring heat from the top product to the bottom product. For

instance, in VRC, condenser and reboiler of a distillation column are eliminated. Temperature,

pressure and dew point of the top product of distillation columns are enhanced through

compression. The compression ratio must be high enough to have a top product with a higher

temperature than the bottoms one. Heat transfer from the top product to the bottoms one occurs

in a heat exchanger in order to provide the both column’s reflux and boil up.

Figure 1: [19, 40, 41]

A novel configuration of distillation is presented that uses no source of hot utilities. The system

utilizes cooling water at a normal temperature 16oC as the sole source of thermal energy. A large

number of petrochemical plants are located near oceans and seas, and have access to large

volumes of water. Since average temperature of oceans is 16oC, these plants can benefit from

4
these systems. The system is flexible and can be designed for various sources of available

cooling water at different temperatures. In this system, the hot utilities are eliminated and the

separation task of the column occurs without using any source of hot utilities such as steam. This

system was named as distillation without hot utilities (DWHU). It was shown that this distillation

system can outperform conventional ones. Similar to VRC and HIDiC, various configurations of

DWHU can be developed to enhance energy efficiency and operational economics of the system.

In this paper, a set of novel configurations of DWHU are presented. The proposed configurations

are designed to reduce energy requirements compared to previous ones. Performance of these

configurations were evaluated and compared with conventional distillation column and VRC.

2. Simulation

Various configurations were proposed for elimination of hot utility requirements through

application of VRC concepts. In the proposed systems, cooling water at a normal temperature

(16oC) was used as the only source of thermal energy. The system was designed in such a way to

utilize this water stream as both hot and cold utilities. The system was named as distillation

without hot utilities (DWHU). In the current paper, various novel configurations of DWHU are

developed and their performance is compared to each other, conventional distillation column and

VRC.

A commercial process simulator (namely Aspen HYSYS) was used for evaluation of different

processing systems. The systems performances were compared for a purification of propylene

from a propylene/propane mixture plant. All the systems were proposed based on the data of an

operating propylene-propane distillation column. The feed is available at a pressure of 22.4bar

and contains propylene and propane with mole fractions of 0.9622 and 0.0378, respectively.

Flow rate of feed is 376.4kmole/h. The systems are designed for producing a propylene stream
5
with propylene and propane mole fraction of 0.996 and 0.004, respectively. It should be noted

that these specifications are common in propylene-propane splitters. For instance, in methanol to

propylene process, a propylene-propane splitter with high pressure, very large number of plates,

and a feed containing more than 90mol% propylene is utilized. Operating at lower pressures

results in an increase in relative volatility of propylene/propane system. Therefore, at a specific

reflux ratio, fewer number of stages are required for separation and also, at a certain number of

stages, smaller reflux ratio are required. However, there is another issue associated with

pressure. Operating pressure influences the operating temperature of the system. Operating at

low pressures results in low operating temperatures. In simulation of conventional distillation

column of the current study, operating temperatures across the column were between 52-60 oC.

Reducing the pressure to a smaller value, e.g. 9bar, requires cryogenic operation. In this

condition it is required to continuously provide a refrigerant at a very low temperature.

Therefore it is common to use higher pressures. Specifications of the feed and products are

presented in Table 1.

Table 1

In methanol to propylene (MTP) process the propane stream is mixed with the C4 products, and

stored as liquid petroleum gas (LPG) product of the process.

Separation of propylene from propylene/propane mixture is a difficult separation process due to

close boiling point temperatures of the two components. In industrial processing plants,

conventional distillation columns with a large number of stages, typically 150-200 stages are

usually used for this separation. In this study, a distillation column with 190 stages was designed

to meet the required purity of propylene (based on the data of an operating column). The new

configurations of these systems were also designed based on the same number of stages to

facilitate a fair comparison.

6
Before beginning the simulations, it was required to see, if the simulator can accurately predict

physical properties of the components. Peng-Robinson property package was used for

performing the simulations. The vapor liquid equilibrium (VLE) data of propylene-propane

system were modeled and compared to experimental data in order to see the see how accurately

the model can predict thermodynamic properties of the system (Table 2). It can be seen that the

obtained results are in good accordance to experimental results. Also, the results were validated

with the data of an operating C3 splitter plant, located in Iran and the results are shown in Table

3.

Table 2: [42]

Table 3

In this study, pressure drops in shell and tube of heat exchangers were neglected and adiabatic

efficiency of implemented compressors were set to 75%. However, pressure drop across the

columns can be an important factor. Pressure drop leads to lower temperatures of the top

product, which in turn results in higher required compression ratios of the compressor in VRC

(for a specific value of heat transfer driving force at early stages of CRC). But when operating

pressure of the system is high, pressure ratio of compressor is slightly affected by pressure drop.

One of the important parameters affecting performance of these separation systems is

temperature approach of heat exchangers. This parameter was set to 7oC, unless one of the

following occurred in the system:

 Required temperature and/or vapor fraction of cold stream was achieved with an

approach, higher than 7oC.

 Required temperature and/or vapor fraction of hot stream was achieved with an approach,

higher than 7oC.

7
  Performances of two heat exchangers were intimately related to each other. For instance,

in Configuration_III, where cooling water takes the heat in condenser and releases it to

the reboier. In these cases, the system was designed in such a way that none of the heat

exchangers operate with a temperature approach, lower than 7oC. So, one of heat

exchangers was operated with a temperature approach, higher than 7oC.

Also, it was assumed that large volumes of water at 16oC are available to the plant as a large

portion of petrochemical plants are located in the vicinity of oceans, seas and rivers. Utilizing the

water from these resources can be an inexpensive way of providing utility. However, in case of

utilizing sea water, high salinity of the water should also be considered (considering problems

such as corrosion). Details of design parameters for the base case distillation column are

presented in Supporting File 1. Condenser and reboiler duties of the base case were 16420 and

15030 kW, respectively.

Performance of each design was influenced by different parameters such as temperatures,

pressures and flow rates of streams, feed stage, reflux rate and products rates of the columns and

temperature approaches of heat exchangers. In this study, optimization methods such as genetic

algorithm were not used. Instead, in a preliminary study, the most important variables affecting

performance of the system were identified. Reflux ratios and compression ratios of compressor

showed the highest influence on performance of the systems. Based on this preliminary study, a

suitable point of operation for each system was obtained. The conventional distillation column

for this separation will be referred to as Configuration_1.

Distillation with VRC has been used for many years to enhance energy efficiencies of close-

boiling distillation systems. In order to evaluate performance of the new proposed systems, it is

required to compare their efficiency with other alternative systems such as VRC. The VRC

8
system was designed for propylene/propane separation process and the designed process flow

diagram as shown in Figure 2 (Configuration_II) utilizes a single column. Also, design

parameters for this configuration are presented in Supporting File 2. Temperature, pressure and

dew point of the top product are enhanced through compression in a compressor and heat

transfer from the high pressure top product to the bottom product occurs through a heat

exchanger. This heat exchanger acts as both reboiler and condenser of the column, in which,

required boil up and reflux for the column are partially provided (in some cases the required

reflux and boil up cannot be completely provided using VRC). So, in some cases trim cooling or

trim heating are required after this heat exchanger. This system was designed to produce the

products with the same purity as the conventional distillation column (Configuration_I). Also,

the distillation column is designed with the same number of stages. The VRC system was

designed in order to result in providing the same specifications for the column. For instance,

reflux ratio and boil up ratios are provided using the VRC system in order to match the

conditions of the base case distillation column. Other details of this design are shown in

Supporting File 2.

Figure 2

It is possible to design systems that only utilize water for providing thermal energy for

distillation systems. The main idea behind proposing such a configuration is to design a system

in such a way that, it requires heating at a temperature lower than water temperature and cooling

at a temperature higher than water temperature. If these can be established in a distillation

process, it would be possible to utilize water, at a certain temperature, in order to carry heat from

the top to the bottom product and produce required reflux and boil up streams. This idea is

9
applied on the propylene/propane separation column based on designing two interconnected

distillation columns operated at different pressures. This pressure difference across the systems

provides the possibility to remove the sources of hot utilities from the systems. The process flow

diagrams of the first two systems are shown in Figures 3 and 4 (Configurations _III and IV).

Also, design parameters for these configurations are presented in Supporting Files 3 and 4. In

Configuration _III, water at 16oC takes the heat from the top product of the second column in a

heat exchanger and releases it to the bottom product of the first column in another heat

exchanger. Water acts as both hot and cold utilities for the system (Figure 3). However, this idea

will be improved in the next configurations. Utilizing propane in a closed cycle results in lower

flow rates of water in the system. Utilizing propane helps using latent heats of vaporization and

condensation in order to reduce the required flow rate of the carrier.

Figure 3

Figure 4

Based on the same concepts, new configurations of DWHU are proposed in order to enhance

performance of the two systems and further energy saving. One of the newly proposed

configurations is shown in Figure 5 (Configuration _V) which is based on Configuration_IV.

Also, design parameters for this configuration are presented in Supporting File 5. In this

configuration, the water stream is used to reduce temperature of two other streams in the process.

However, this change results in higher capital costs of the process due to addition of another heat

exchanger to the system, results in reduction of the required flow rate of water and consequently

operating costs of the system. An economic analysis is required to evaluate overall economic

issue.

10
 Figure 5

Another design for this separation is Configuration _VI (shown in Figure 6) in which the isobaric

propane cycle is eliminated. Also, design parameters for this configuration are presented in

Supporting File 6. The system is designed based on the same concepts. Heat is transferred from

the top to bottom product in a heat exchanger. The required column boil up is produced in this

heat exchanger, while the required column reflux is partially produced. However, it is required to

absorb more heat from the top product. The system is designed to be able to absorb heat from

this stream using cooling water. Application of this configuration can result in lower required

flow rates of water compared to all the previous configurations. This change not only can reduce

its operating cost but also decreases its capital costs as only two exchangers are required.

Figure 6

Another alternative design is shown in Figure 7 (Configuration _VII). Also, design parameters

for this configuration are presented in Supporting File 7. The system is very similar to

Configuration _VI, and the only difference is application of a two phase separator for separation

of reflux from the top product of the column. This change results in lower flow rates of water in

the system because just a fraction of the top product stream is condensed. In fact, lower flow

rates of water would be required because a fraction of the top product is not condensed. Thus, in

comparison to Configuration_VI, it is expected that capital costs of this system be increased, but

its operating costs will be decreased. An economic analysis is required to evaluate this change.

The main difference between Configuration_VI and Configuration_VII was that in

11
Configuration_VII, a fraction of top product of the second column is liquefied for providing

reflux and the remaining was drawn as a vapor product. This leads to smaller required water

flow rate in the system. However, a two phase separator must be added to the system. Therefore,

economic comparison was required between the two cases. Applicability of Configuration_VII

depends on the downstream unit operation. If the downstream unit operation requires liquid

feed, then this configuration cannot be used.

Figure 7

𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑒𝑟 𝑑𝑢𝑡𝑦
It should be noted that in all of the presented DWHU configurations, the ratio of of
𝑟𝑒𝑏𝑜𝑖𝑙𝑒𝑟 𝑑𝑢𝑡𝑦

the base conventional distillation column has a significant influence on their performances. Ideal

𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑒𝑟 𝑑𝑢𝑡𝑦
condition can be considered for ratio of unity. Under this condition, both required
𝑟𝑒𝑏𝑜𝑖𝑙𝑒𝑟 𝑑𝑢𝑡𝑦

hot and cold utilities for operation of the system are eliminated, i.e. zero water flow rate. By

increasing or decreasing this ratio from one, higher flow rates of water are required. Application

of DWHU systems is not recommended for ratios far from one. In this case, only a very small

fraction of boil up or reflux of the column is produced through heat transfer of the top product to

the bottom product while the rest of thermal energy should be provided through heat transfer

with a large volume of water. However, under this condition, the systems are still operational.

The various presented processing systems are compared based on a certain value of

𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑒𝑟 𝑑𝑢𝑡𝑦
. For a system with different ratio, the overall performance of the DWHU
𝑟𝑒𝑏𝑜𝑖𝑙𝑒𝑟 𝑑𝑢𝑡𝑦

configurations is reduced compared to the base case. However, among the DWHU systems, the

superior configuration would remain the best configuration at various ratios.

12
 3. Results and discussion

The presented seven configurations for separation of propylene from a propylene/propane

mixture have been used for production of propylene with the same purity. These processing

systems were simulated by Aspen HYSYS and were economically evaluated by Aspen

Economic Evaluation software. The results of simulation and economic evaluation of the

systems are presented and compared in this section for identification of weakness and strength of

the seven configurations.

Initially, energy requirements of VRC and distillation without hot utilities (DWHU) systems

were evaluated. In chemical systems, usually cooling water is used as the cold utility and high,

medium and low pressure steam is used as the hot utility. Heat transfer between these utilities

and various streams of the process provides required thermal energy for operation of the

chemical plant. Utilizing VRC and DWHU systems can lead to lower condenser and/or reboiler

duties and therefore lower energy and utility requirements of the system. Cold utility and

required mechanical work of the seven configurations are presented in Figure 8. The results were

obtained based on the same feed specifications and product purities. As shown in Figure 8, the

conventional distillation column (Configuration _I) requires the highest net energy for its

operation and application of the VRC (Configuration _II) results in 73.6% reduction in cold

utility requirements of the process. If Configuration_III is selected, would have required slightly

higher cold utilities, but, it would not have required any source of hot utilities. This characteristic

of the system, reduces total utility requirements of the system by 52.7% compared to the base

case conventional distillation column (Configuration _I). Furthermore, as shown in Figure 8,

using the closed isobaric propane cycle reduces the energy requirements of DWHU system as a

large fraction of the required energy is provided through the closed cycle. Based on the presented

13
results, 92.6% reduction in cold utility requirements of the system can be gained by

implementing Configuration _III. By using Configuration _VII, cold utility requirements of the

system can be reduced by 95.8%. This is equivalent to 97.8% reduction in total utility

requirements. Based on these results, from energy consumption view point, Configuration _VII

is the best among the evaluated systems.

Figure 8

Evaluation of performance of the systems only based on total energy requirements can lead to

uneconomical results because costs of providing different sources of energy and utility (e.g.

cooling water, steam and electricity) must be considered. Equivalent required work for operation

of the seven configurations is shown in Figure 9. These values were calculated based on the

following formula, presented in [43].

𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑡 − 𝑇𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑘
𝑊𝑒𝑞 = 0.75 × 𝑄𝑟𝑒𝑏 × ( ) + 𝑊𝑝𝑢𝑚𝑝 + 𝑊𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑝 (𝑒𝑞1)
𝑇𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑘

The conventional distillation column does not require power as a source of energy as cooling

water and steam are used as the sources of thermal energy in condenser and reboiler. However,

based on the performed calculations, its required equivalent work is higher than all of the other

six configurations. But, in the other six configurations, power is required because of presence of

a compressor. Based on the presented results, among the other six cases, the VRC system

(Configuration _II) requires the highest amount of equivalent work for its operation and by

selecting a DWHU system (for instance Configuration _VII), it is possible to decrease equivalent

work requirements of the system by 3.9%. Based on Figure 9, the DWHU configurations exhibit

14
the best performance. It can also be concluded from Figure 9 that DWHU systems outperforms

VRC based on the required equivalent work for separation.

Figure 9

Performance of the seven configurations is compared from energy consumption point of view,

but selection of a configuration for operation of this process is based on economics of the

configurations. Capital and operating costs of the configurations were evaluated using Aspen

Economic Evaluation software (Figure 10). Costs of utilities were taken as follows.

Cost of electricity: 0.0775 $/kWh

Cost of 100 psi steam: 17.7 $/1000kg

Cost of cooling water: 0.032 $/1000kg

Also, details of investment costs (including purchased equipment costs) of the seven

configurations are reported in Supporting File 8. The results indicate that the base case

distillation column requires the highest operating costs and the lowest capital costs. The lower

capital costs were due to addition of various equipment such as compressors in VRC and DWHU

configurations. However, the results indicate that by addition of this equipment and applying the

proposed schemes, the operating costs of the system can be significantly reduced. The capital

costs were estimated by Aspen Economic Evaluation software. Pressure vessels were designed

based on ASME design codes. Type of the compressors was centrifugal compressors driven by

electric motors. Kettle type reboilers were used. The 2/3 rule for heat exchangers were applied.

Minimum overdesign factor for surface area of heat exchangers was set to 1.15. Furthermore, the

15
towers were sieved trays with tray spacing of 24 in and flooding factor (vapor velocity/ vapor

velocity at flooding condition) of 0.8 and downcomer liquid velocity of 0.4-0.5 fps.

Figure 10

The configurations were economically evaluated and total annual costs of the processes (based

on payback period of 5 years) are reported in Figure 11. The results indicate that total annual

costs of DWHU configurations are lower than VRC and conventional distillation column. This

observation was attributed to two characteristics of DHWU systems. These systems require no

source of hot utilities and much smaller cold utilities, which results in lower operating costs.

Although new equipment such as compressors is added, DWHU systems utilize the two sections

of column at two different pressures. Pressure of the stripping section is significantly lower than

rectifying section, which results in lower purchased costs of column. These issues contribute to

better economic performance of DWHU configurations compared to conventional distillation

column and VRC. The results indicate that the lowest total annual costs can be obtained by

selecting Configurations_VI and VII. Selecting Configuration_VI can lead to 17.6 and 5.6%

reduction in total annual costs can be obtained in comparison to conventional distillation column

and vapor recompression, respectively. A summary of the obtained results are reported in Table

4.

Figure 11

Table 4

Generally, this method gives the best performance for close-boiling systems, in plants that have

access to large volumes of water, e.g. located near oceans and seas. For wide-boiling systems

large compression ratios would be required, which affects economic performance of the system.

16
The proposed systems not only are applicable to propylene/propane separations, but also to

other similar close-boiling separations. However, further research is required for economic

evaluation of these systems on other separations such as isobutane/n-butane separation. It was

necessary to select a basis for evaluating energy and economic performance of the main ideas.

Therefore, a data of an operating propylene/propane separation system were selected.

4. Conclusions

In this paper, novel configurations of distillation without hot utilities (DWHU) are presented. In

the DWHU systems, only cooling water at a normal temperature is used as utility. In other

words, cooling water acts as both hot and cold utilities for the distillation column. The

performance of the new introduced systems are evaluated and compared to conventional

distillation column, VRC and base DWHU. It has been revealed that, based on energy

requirements and associated costs, the newly proposed DWHU system can outperform VRC and

conventional distillation column. It has been revealed that compared to conventional distillation

column, by using the proposed DWHU system, 33.3% reduction in required equivalent work of

the system can be obtained. Also, by using the proposed system, annual operating costs and total

annual costs of the process can be reduced by 35.9 and 17.6%, respectively.

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Figure Caption

21
Figr-1

Figure 1: Simplified process flow diagrams of a) heat pump assisted distillation [19] b) vapor recompression
[39]and c) heat integrated distillation[38]

22
Figure 2: Process flow diagram of vapor recompression-VRC (Configuration_II)

23
Figure 3: Process flow diagram of the base DWW system (Configuration_III)

24
Figure 4: Process flow diagram of DWW with incorporation of an isobaric propane cycle (Configuration_IV)

25
Figure 5: Process flow diagram of DWW with incorporation of an isobaric propane cycle and two stage heat
transfer to cooling water (Configuration_V)

26
Figure 6: Process flow diagram of DWW without propane cycle (Configuration_VI)

27
Figure 7: Process flow diagram of DWW with vapor phase products without propane cycle
(Configuration_VII)

28
 18000
16000
Energy requirements (kW)

14000
12000 Cold utility
Power
10000
8000
6000
4000
2000
0
I II III IV V VI VII
Configuration number

Figure 8: Energy requirements of the designed configurations

29
Equivalent work requirements (kW) 5000
4500
4000
3500
3000
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
I II III IV V VI VII
Configuration number

Figure 9: Equivalent work requirements of the seven configurations

30
 1.6E+07
Operating costs (USD/year) Capital costs (USD)
1.4E+07
Operating costs (USD/year)

1.2E+07
1.0E+07
8.0E+06
6.0E+06
4.0E+06
2.0E+06
0.0E+00
I II III IV V VI VII
Configuration number

Figure 10: Required capital and operating costs of the seven configurations

31
Figure 11: Total annual costs of the seven configurations

32
 Table 1: Specifications of the feed and products

Propylene mole Propane mole

Feed/Product Flow rate (kmole/h)
fraction fraction
Feed 376.4 0.9622 0.00378
Light product 359.9 0.9960 0.0040
Heavy product 16.5 0.2237 0.7763

33
Table 2: Comparison of the vapor liquid equilibrium data obtained by simulation and experiment [41](1=
propylene, 2= propane)

X1 Y1
Temperature Pressure
Experiment Experiment
(oF) (psi) Simulation Simulation
[41] [41]
82.7 154.2 0.107 0.107 0.124 0.124
82.7 168.2 0.514 0.514 0.546 0.549
82.7 179.1 0.900 0.900 0.907 0.909
134.9 301.0 0.138 0.138 0.151 0.154
134.9 322.4 0.478 0.478 0.503 0.505
134.9 342.2 0.874 0.874 0.880 0.883

34
 Table 3: Comparison of simulation results with data of an operating plant

Feed/Column/products specifications Operating plant Simulation

Feed flow rate (kmole/h) 376.40 376.40
Propane flow rate in feed
14.24 14.24
(kmole/h)
Propylene flow rate in feed
362.16 362.16
(kmole/h)
Inputs
Feed temperature (oC) 75.6 75.6
Feed pressure (bar) 22.4 22.4
No. stages 190 190
Feed stage 121 121
Column pressure drop (bar) 0.4 0.4
Top product flow rate
359.9 359.9
(kmole/h)
Specifications
Mole% of propene in top
99.6 99.6
product
Bottom product flow rate
16.50 16.49
(kmole/h)
Top product temperature (oC) 53.0 52.7
Bottom product temperature
62.0 61.0
(oC)
Results
Viscosity of bottom product
0.058 0.067
(cp)
Condenser duty (kW) 16490 16420
Reboiler duty (kW) 15090 15030
Top product temperature (oC) 53.0 52.7

35
 Table 4: Summary of obtained results

Item Conf._I Conf._II Conf._III Conf._IV Conf._V Conf._VI Conf._VII

Required cold
16420 4330 16560 1222 1036 4547 689
utility (kW)
Required hot
15030 0 0 0 0 0 0
utility (kW)
Required
compressor 0 3052 2932 2932 2932 2932 2932
work (kW)
Operating
costs 6.61 4.44 4.27 4.35 4.31 4.26 4.28
(mUSD/year)
Capital costs
9.52 13.5 12.6 13.5 14.1 12.0 12.4
(mUSD)
Total annual
costs 9.05 7.90 7.50 7.81 7.93 7.33 7.46
(mUSD/year)

36