Graphic synthesis method for multi-technique integration separation sequences of multi-input refinery gases

Abstract

In petroleum and chemical industries, many valuable species are depleted into various refinery gases. In order to fractionate and reclaim these valuable components efficiently and sufficiently, it is necessary to integrate diverse separation techniques together. The major obstacle to synthesize and optimize such a multi-component and multi-input process is the combinatorial explosion. In this research, graphic synthesis method is established to construct the multi-technique integration processes, in which the optimum or near-optimum sequence would be programmed to couple high efficient separation unit operations together to improve efficiency. As the support, three technical measures are summarized: the pseudo-ternary mixtures of H2, light hydrocarbons and fuel gases are proposed to depict refinery gases, after ranking species with their separation characteristics and belongings in products, so that the composition space can be visualized into triangular coordinate system; the dominant feed ranges for the pivotal separation units, i.e., adsorption, condensation, glassy and rubbery polymeric membranes, are determined after efficiency analysis, in which the represented technique is more efficient than the others for the composition matched feedstock; the shortcut calculation and the visualized representation with vectors in triangular coordinate system are created to quickly estimate separation operations, owing to their selectivity unique to a certain component group. Without laborious work to screen numerous sequences, this method programs recovery strategies and synthesizes processes appropriately and quickly.