Exergy Analysis of Vacuum Distillation Unit

Abstract

Abstract Energy efficiency studies have an important role in the petroleum industry in terms of environmental impacts and cost. In this context, distillation units are important process units in the refinery. Osuolale and Zhang (2018) pointed out they cause about 35 % of energy consumption. Energy analysis studies are useful in energy efficiency but remain incapable in some areas. Besides energy analysis in other words exergy analysis, which is related to the second law of thermodynamic, is a very powerful tool for detecting losses. In this study, an exergy analysis study was carried out on the vacuum distillation unit located in TUPRAS Izmit Refinery. Vacuum distillation unit (VDU) processes heavy petroleum products from atmospheric distillation column. Heavy, medium, and light gas oil and vacuum residue are the products of VDU. Vacuum distillation column was simulated in ASPEN HYSYS V10 in this study by using operational data and equipment information for exergy analysis. Energy and exergy analysis calculations were completed and case studies were carried out to examine the effect of various operational conditions on the exergy efficiency of the column in the ASPEN HYSYS. In order to see the effects of different operational conditions such as pump-around (PA) flowrate and return temperature for exergy efficiency on online platform, data was created by using of Aspen Simulation environment and an exergy prediction model was developed with machine learning models in R-Studio. Thus, support on exergy efficiency was provided with successful prediction models.