Innovative Heat Integration Using Bottom Flashing Method: Energy, Exergy, Economic, and Environmental Evaluations of Natural Gas Sweetening Process

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

1 School of Chemical, Petroleum and Gas Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran

2 School of Chemical Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

3 School of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

4 School of Chemical Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan, Iran

Abstract

The process of sour gas sweetening by amine has found extensive applications in the chemical industries. This process is typically associated with significant CO2 emissions and energy consumption due to the use of absorption and distillation columns. In this regard, the heat integration of the process is essential to reduce the costs and environmental consequences. A heat exchanger is used in most gas refineries between the two columns which can decrease the consumption utility. The energy consumption of the process is still high due to the presence of a reboiler and a condenser in the solvent recovery column. In this research, vapor recompression (VRC) and bottom flashing (BF) were employed for heat integration. To compare the proposed methods with the conventional approaches, four different procedures were accurately simulated and their energy consumption, total annual cost (TAC), exergy efficiency, exergy loss, and CO2 emissions were compared. The results indicated that BF heat integration outperformed the conventional methods by significantly reducing energy consumption, TAC, exergy loss, and CO2 emissions, while enhancing exergy efficiency, primarily due to the reduction of the need for hot and cold utilities in the recovery column.

Highlights

  • Heat integration methods in MEA-based gas sweetening process were studied
  • Exergy, energy, TAC, and CO2 emissions improved using vapor recompression and bottom flashing
  • Bottom flashing method was applied in natural gas sweetening process for the first time
  • Bottom flashing method in gas sweetening process was defined as the optimum process

Keywords

References

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Chemical Process Design
Volume 3, Issue 2
December 2024
Pages 61-80

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