TY - JOUR
T1 - Retrofit of an Industrial Solvent Recovery System
T2 - Distillation Sequence Intensification and Simulation-based Optimization
AU - Yang, Minbo
AU - Li, Ting
AU - Feng, Xiao
AU - Rong, Ben-Guang
AU - Wang, Yufei
PY - 2022/4
Y1 - 2022/4
N2 - An industrial solvent recovery system in a rubber process consists of four distillation columns to recover solvent and unreacted 1,3-butadiene monomer. After the solvent is changed from raffinate oil to hexanes, it needs to investigate whether the current system can be retrofitted to reduce the number of columns and save energy. This work presents stepwise retrofit of the solvent recovery system by distillation sequence intensification and simulation-based optimization. Based on insights in distillation columns, an evolutionary strategy is introduced to generate intensified distillation sequences from the current distillation system. Next, a simulation-based optimization method considering comprehensive hydraulic evaluation is developed to obtain the best operating parameters of distillation columns. Seven distillation sequence alternatives to the current solvent recovery system are generated. The result indicates that the most compact sequence with two distillation columns can decrease the energy cost by 41.50%, while the preferred solution is a three-column sequence with the least modifications that reduces the energy cost by 33.13%. The proposed method also gives insights in energy saving and identifies bottlenecks to further improve the energy performance.
AB - An industrial solvent recovery system in a rubber process consists of four distillation columns to recover solvent and unreacted 1,3-butadiene monomer. After the solvent is changed from raffinate oil to hexanes, it needs to investigate whether the current system can be retrofitted to reduce the number of columns and save energy. This work presents stepwise retrofit of the solvent recovery system by distillation sequence intensification and simulation-based optimization. Based on insights in distillation columns, an evolutionary strategy is introduced to generate intensified distillation sequences from the current distillation system. Next, a simulation-based optimization method considering comprehensive hydraulic evaluation is developed to obtain the best operating parameters of distillation columns. Seven distillation sequence alternatives to the current solvent recovery system are generated. The result indicates that the most compact sequence with two distillation columns can decrease the energy cost by 41.50%, while the preferred solution is a three-column sequence with the least modifications that reduces the energy cost by 33.13%. The proposed method also gives insights in energy saving and identifies bottlenecks to further improve the energy performance.
KW - Distillation sequence intensification
KW - Energy saving
KW - Hydraulic correlations
KW - Simulation-based optimization
KW - Solvent recovery system
U2 - 10.1016/j.cherd.2022.02.020
DO - 10.1016/j.cherd.2022.02.020
M3 - Journal article
SN - 0263-8762
VL - 180
SP - 164
EP - 177
JO - Chemical Engineering Research & Design
JF - Chemical Engineering Research & Design
ER -