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Title: Future perspectives of using hollow fibers as structured packings in light hydrocarbon distillation

Abstract

Olefin and paraffin are the largest chemical commodities. Furthermore, they are major building blocks for the petrochemical industry. Each year, petroleum refining, consumes 4,500 TBtu/yr in separation energy, making it one of the most energy-intensive industries in the United States). Just considering liquefied petroleum gas (ethane/propane/butane) and olefins (ethylene and propylene) alone, the distillation energy consumption is about 400 TBtu/yr in the US. Since petroleum distillation is a mature technology, incremental improvements in column/tray design will only provide a few percent improvements in the performance. However, each percent saving in net energy use amounts to savings of 10 TBtu/yr and reduces CO{sub 2} emissions by 0.2 MTon/yr. In practice, distillation columns require 100 to 200 trays to achieve the desired separation. The height of a transfer unit (HTU) of conventional packings is typical in the range of 36-60 inch. Since 2006, we had explored using several non-selective membranes as the structured packings to replace the conventional packing materials used in propane and propylene distillation. We obtained the lowest HTU of < 8 inch for the hollow fiber column, which was >5 times shorter than that of the conventional packing materials. In 2008, we also investigated this type of packing materialsmore » in iso-/n-butane distillation. Because of a slightly larger relative volatility of iso-/n-butane than that of propane/propylene, a wider and a more stable operational range was obtained for the iso-/n-butane pair. However, all of the experiments were conducted on a small scale with flowrate of < 25 gram/min. Recently, we demonstrated this technology on a larger scale (<250 gram/min). Within the loading range of F-factor < 2.2 Pa{sup 0.5}, a pressure drop on the vapor side is below 50 mbar/m, which suggests that the pressure drop of hollow fibers packings is not an engineering barrier for the applications in distillations. The thermal stability study suggests that polypropylene hollow fibers are stable after a long time exposure to C{sub 2} - C{sub 4} mixtures. The effects of packing density on the separation efficiency will be discussed.« less

Authors:
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [1]
  1. Los Alamos National Laboratory
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE
OSTI Identifier:
1049971
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-11-00617; LA-UR-11-617
TRN: US201218%%393
DOE Contract Number:  
AC52-06NA25396
Resource Type:
Conference
Resource Relation:
Conference: AIChE Spring Meeting, 2011 ; March 13, 2011 ; Chicago, Il
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
02 PETROLEUM; 36 MATERIALS SCIENCE; ALKENES; BINDING ENERGY; DISTILLATION; EFFICIENCY; ENERGY CONSUMPTION; ETHYLENE; FIBERS; HYDROCARBONS; MEMBRANES; MIXTURES; NET ENERGY; PARAFFIN; PETROCHEMICALS; PETROLEUM; POLYPROPYLENE; PRESSURE DROP; PROPANE; PROPYLENE; REFINING; VOLATILITY

Citation Formats

Yang, Dali, Orler, Bruce, Tornga, Stephanie, and Welch, Cindy. Future perspectives of using hollow fibers as structured packings in light hydrocarbon distillation. United States: N. p., 2011. Web.
Yang, Dali, Orler, Bruce, Tornga, Stephanie, & Welch, Cindy. Future perspectives of using hollow fibers as structured packings in light hydrocarbon distillation. United States.
Yang, Dali, Orler, Bruce, Tornga, Stephanie, and Welch, Cindy. 2011. "Future perspectives of using hollow fibers as structured packings in light hydrocarbon distillation". United States. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1049971.
@article{osti_1049971,
title = {Future perspectives of using hollow fibers as structured packings in light hydrocarbon distillation},
author = {Yang, Dali and Orler, Bruce and Tornga, Stephanie and Welch, Cindy},
abstractNote = {Olefin and paraffin are the largest chemical commodities. Furthermore, they are major building blocks for the petrochemical industry. Each year, petroleum refining, consumes 4,500 TBtu/yr in separation energy, making it one of the most energy-intensive industries in the United States). Just considering liquefied petroleum gas (ethane/propane/butane) and olefins (ethylene and propylene) alone, the distillation energy consumption is about 400 TBtu/yr in the US. Since petroleum distillation is a mature technology, incremental improvements in column/tray design will only provide a few percent improvements in the performance. However, each percent saving in net energy use amounts to savings of 10 TBtu/yr and reduces CO{sub 2} emissions by 0.2 MTon/yr. In practice, distillation columns require 100 to 200 trays to achieve the desired separation. The height of a transfer unit (HTU) of conventional packings is typical in the range of 36-60 inch. Since 2006, we had explored using several non-selective membranes as the structured packings to replace the conventional packing materials used in propane and propylene distillation. We obtained the lowest HTU of < 8 inch for the hollow fiber column, which was >5 times shorter than that of the conventional packing materials. In 2008, we also investigated this type of packing materials in iso-/n-butane distillation. Because of a slightly larger relative volatility of iso-/n-butane than that of propane/propylene, a wider and a more stable operational range was obtained for the iso-/n-butane pair. However, all of the experiments were conducted on a small scale with flowrate of < 25 gram/min. Recently, we demonstrated this technology on a larger scale (<250 gram/min). Within the loading range of F-factor < 2.2 Pa{sup 0.5}, a pressure drop on the vapor side is below 50 mbar/m, which suggests that the pressure drop of hollow fibers packings is not an engineering barrier for the applications in distillations. The thermal stability study suggests that polypropylene hollow fibers are stable after a long time exposure to C{sub 2} - C{sub 4} mixtures. The effects of packing density on the separation efficiency will be discussed.},
doi = {},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1049971}, journal = {},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed Jan 26 00:00:00 EST 2011},
month = {Wed Jan 26 00:00:00 EST 2011}
}

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