Boilers
Inspect steam reformers and catalyst tubes with infrared thermography
Infrared thermography is a useful inspection tool to help locate problems in steam reformers while the units are online and fired. There are three main areas in a reformer that can be efficiently insp..
HP Water Management: Best practices for RO operations
Widespread use of reverse osmosis (RO) technology in industrial applications began in the late 1980s, following the introduction of polyamide materials that had a significantly higher permeate flow an..
Mitigate fouling in crude unit overhead—Part 3
CASE STUDYThe basis for this case study is shown in Fig. 18; it is a crude unit with overhead heat integration. This is a one-drum overhead system with heat integration and no water wash. In an attemp..
Improve pressure drop calculations for saturated water lines
When saturated water flows through pipes and components, it flashes—thus increasing its specific volume and limiting the fluid flowrate. Due to these conditions, the calculation and design for pi..
Achieve uniform heat flux in a coker furnace
A delayed coker unit thermally cracks vacuum residue (VR) and converts it into products like liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), naphtha, gasoil and petroleum coke. A majority of the thermal cracking takes..
Optimize amine units and improve refinery profitability
The alkanolamine system in a refinery, better known as the amine unit, is used to remove hydrogen sulfide (H2S), carbon dioxide (CO2) and mercaptans (collectively referred to as acid gases) from proce..
Optimize crude preheat train to balance efficiency and operability
Critical attention must be paid when designing the crude distillation unit (CDU) preheat train. Many pitfalls can easily lead to unnecessary expenditures or unsatisfactory operations. Key design crite..
Are you using pinch technology effectively in your daily operations?—Part 1
Pinch technology is the most rigorous, systematic and best documented methodology for process design.1–3 Nearly all optimization projects for heat recovery are conducted with some form of pinch a..
Consider novel CGC and front-end depropanizer system for olefins production
In the presented case study, an innovative design for an integrated CGC-DeC3 system introduces part of the heavier condensate from the early compression stages directly into the high-pressure (HP) depropanizer.
Enhance operation and reliability of dividing-wall columns
Dividing wall columns (DWCs) are an attractive option when the goals are to reduce energy consumption and capital investment for distillation processes. A major component in a DWC system is the reflux..
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