Modification of an Industrial Ethane Recovery Plant Using Mixed Integer Optimization and Shuffled Frog Leaping Algorithm

摘要

A currently in operation ethane recovery plant was simulated and compared with the real one. The objective of this process is to separate C_1-C_2 and C_3~+ at the minimum utility cost. Then, optimal operating parameters were determined, in which the objective function is based on the plant profit. Shuffled frog leaping algorithm was applied for the optimization of this plant. The algorithm parameters were adjusted for improving the performance of the algorithm through optimization of the problem. The results show that at the optimum point the profit increased by 2.4 % and utility costs decreased by 5 %. In the next part, the potential of the plant for modification of the process configuration was considered. The analysis showed that it is possible to improve the process and refrigeration cycle configurations to the more efficient one. In the optimum point the profit increased by 8 % towards the base case and operating cost decreased by 12.8%.