Feasibility study on replacement of atmospheric distillation column with new sequences in a natural gas condensate refinery

摘要

The atmospheric distillation unit is the main separation unit in crude oil and natural gas condensate refineries. An atmospheric distillation column in a natural gas condensate unit usually consists of a single column with 3 pump-arounds and 2 side strippers. In this work a new column sequences have been synthesised for the first time using the modified separation matrix method and the results had been compared to other well-known configuration through economic, exergy and exergoeconomic analysis. The results illustrate that the conventional atmospheric distillation configuration has a medium performance compared to other sequences. As an example, comparing the results obtained from the direct sequence, to the conventional distillation sequence, leads in almost 30% less annual cost, 54% less exergy loss rate and 5% more exergoeconomic factor. However, the 84.87% exergoeconomic factor for the conventional configuration could justify the application of conventional sequence in the refinery.