Heat Transfer Study in a Concentric Stage of an Internally Heat-Integrated Distillation Column (HIDiC) Using CFD Simulation

摘要

Currently, distillation columns consume a large amount of energy in petroleum and alcohol industry. This has led to the development of a new internal configuration in the distillation columns called Heat-Integrated Distillation Column (HIDiC). In this configuration the column is composed for two concentric sections called rectifying and stripping. The heat transfer is conducted from the rectifying section (which works at higher pressure and temperature) to the stripping section (which works at lower pressure and temperature) forming a fractionating column. The HIDiC offers great potential to reduce energy consumption compared to the conventional column. However, the complexity of the proposed configuration justifies the need of rigorous simulations that enable a better understanding of the column operation. In this work, the computational fluid dynamic (CFD) was used to study the heat transfer in a concentric stage of a HIDiC column. The results obtained by CFD simulation showed the internal heat transfer as a promissory configuration for decrease energy consumption in distillation processes.