Abstract
Process integration (PI) techniques is an efficient approach to increase the profitability due to reduction in energy, water and raw materials consumption, reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and in waste generation. The PI method, pinch technology is certainly the most widely used in industrial processes. When planning a new plant or revamping an existing plant it is very important to understand and select the right process to minimize capital and operating costs. This research was directed to investigate the reduction of energy consumption in propane recovery units that process natural gas produced from wells existing in the Egyptian western desert fields. The first step was process simulation of the existing gas processing plant using AspenHysys8.3 steady state process simulation program. Next, pinch technology has been adopted in order to achieve minimum hot and cold utilities and save capital cost of the process. Target utilities were calculated using pinch analysis in the Aspen energy analyzer program. Modifications in heat exchanger network could result in savings of 8.3% in hot utility, 6.5% in cold utility of the existing plant and of 46.7% in capital cost for a grass root plant.
Highlights
One of the most important forms of energy in any industrial process is heat
Energy saving potential was investigated using Aspen Energy Analyzer utility after steady state simulation of the proposed maximum propane recovery process using of Aspen HYSYS software
Process Description of the Proposed Maximum Propane Recovery Gas Plant. This is a case of a natural gas processing plant that exists in Egyptian western desert which processes 153056.5 Kg/h of natural gas produced from western desert gas fields
Summary
One of the most important forms of energy in any industrial process is heat. In a typical process, there are many hot streams that should be cooled and vice versa. Instead, integrating the process by transferring the heat from the hot streams to cold streams may lead to a significant cost reduction. This process is well known as heat exchanger networks (HENs) design. The purpose of heat integrations to utilize the existing thermal energy in a process before using external utilities. The discovery of the heat pinch in the late seventies enabled engineers to identify minimum utility targets, for the first time, ahead of design [1]. The first stage is establishing the minimum utility targets. The second stage is stream matching so as to reach these targets. The first method is a graphical method based on the enthalpy - temperature diagram which was later developed to its mathematical equivalent known as the problem table algorithm [1]
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