Comprehensive Investigation and Comparison of Refinery Distillation Technologies (original) (raw)

2014, Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research

Distillation is an important and widely applied separation method. One of its major application areas is crude oil refining. We investigate and compare two different refinery technologies: (i) conventional, atmospheric and vacuum, AV-plant, and (ii) an alternative one, the so-called progressive distillation technology. For the sake of the comparison, simulation models of the two different distillation technologies are built in professional flowsheeting software environment. The investigation includes the study of crude oil fractionation on the examples of processing different types of crude oils. Both technologies are also evaluated with the tools of pinch technology. On the basis of the results of the pinch analysis, heat exchanger networks are also designed. The operating and capital costs are estimated for the energy integrated cases designed on the results of pinch technology. A comparison of the results shows that the progressive distillation plant proves to be both more energy efficient and economical than the currently applied atmospheric and vacuum distillation plants.

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