IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/energy/v35y2010i3p1439-1446.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Simple equations to correlate theoretical stages and operating reflux in fractionators

Author

Listed:
  • Bahadori, Alireza
  • Vuthaluru, Hari B.

Abstract

Natural gas is an important source of primary energy. Virtually all gas processing plants producing natural gas liquids require at least one fractionator to produce a liquid product which can meet sales specifications. Fractionation is one of the pivotal unit operations in refineries, gas processing and other industries utilized to separate mixtures into individual products. However, it is capital and energy intensive and, with decreasing relative volatility, the size and energy requirements of a column tend to increase. The primary parameters involved in the design of fractionators are the number of stages and the reflux ratio. The aim of this study is to develop easy-to-use equations, which are simpler than current available models involving a large number of parameters and requiring more complicated and longer computations, for an appropriate prediction the operating reflux ratio for a given number of stages. Alternatively, for a given reflux ratio, number of stages can be determined. The accuracy of the proposed equations was tested and found to be in excellent agreement with the reported data for the wide range of conditions, wherein the average absolute deviation percent of proposed equations being 1.5%. These simple-to-use equations can be of immense practical value for the engineers. In particular, process engineers would find the proposed approach to be user friendly involving no complex expressions with transparent calculations.

Suggested Citation

  • Bahadori, Alireza & Vuthaluru, Hari B., 2010. "Simple equations to correlate theoretical stages and operating reflux in fractionators," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 1439-1446.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:35:y:2010:i:3:p:1439-1446
    DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2009.11.029
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544209005180
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.energy.2009.11.029?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gandhidasan, P & Al-Farayedhi, Abdulghani A & Al-Mubarak, Ali A, 2001. "Dehydration of natural gas using solid desiccants," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 26(9), pages 855-868.
    2. Bahadori, Alireza & Vuthaluru, Hari B., 2009. "Simple methodology for sizing of absorbers for TEG (triethylene glycol) gas dehydration systems," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 34(11), pages 1910-1916.
    3. Gadalla, M. & Olujić, Ž. & de Rijke, A. & Jansens, P.J., 2006. "Reducing CO2 emissions of internally heat-integrated distillation columns for separation of close boiling mixtures," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 31(13), pages 2409-2417.
    4. Araújo, Antonio B. & Brito, Romildo P. & Vasconcelos, Luís S., 2007. "Exergetic analysis of distillation processes—A case study," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 32(7), pages 1185-1193.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bahadori, Alireza & Vuthaluru, Hari B., 2010. "A method for estimation of recoverable heat from blowdown systems during steam generation," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 35(8), pages 3501-3507.
    2. Bahadori, Alireza & Vuthaluru, Hari B., 2010. "Predictive tools for the estimation of downcomer velocity and vapor capacity factor in fractionators," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 87(8), pages 2615-2620, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kiss, Anton A. & Flores Landaeta, Servando J. & Infante Ferreira, Carlos A., 2012. "Towards energy efficient distillation technologies – Making the right choice," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 531-542.
    2. Nguyen, Nghi & Demirel, Yaşar, 2010. "Retrofit of distillation columns in biodiesel production plants," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 1625-1632.
    3. Khalili-Garakani, Amirhossein & Ivakpour, Javad & Kasiri, Norollah, 2016. "Evolutionary synthesis of optimum light ends recovery unit with exergy analysis application," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 507-522.
    4. Sun, Jinsheng & Dai, Leilei & Shi, Ming & Gao, Hong & Cao, Xijia & Liu, Guangxin, 2014. "Further optimization of a parallel double-effect organosilicon distillation scheme through exergy analysis," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 370-377.
    5. Yeboah, S.K. & Darkwa, J., 2016. "A critical review of thermal enhancement of packed beds for water vapour adsorption," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 1500-1520.
    6. Kaur, Jasdeep & Sangal, Vikas Kumar, 2017. "Reducing energy requirements for ETBE synthesis using reactive dividing wall distillation column," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 671-676.
    7. Sun, Jinsheng & Wang, Fan & Ma, Tingting & Gao, Hong & Liu, Yanzhen & Cai, Fang, 2012. "Exergy analysis of a parallel double-effect organosilicon monomer distillation scheme," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 498-504.
    8. Zhang, Bo & Guo, Yaning & Li, Nian & He, Peng & Guo, Xiangji, 2023. "Experimental study of gas–liquid behavior in three-flow vortex tube with sintered metal porous material as the drain part," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 263(PA).
    9. Fábrega, F.M. & Rossi, J.S. & d'Angelo, J.V.H., 2010. "Exergetic analysis of the refrigeration system in ethylene and propylene production process," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 1224-1231.
    10. Chen, Ting & Zhang, Bingjian & Chen, Qinglin, 2014. "Heat integration of fractionating systems in para-xylene plants based on column optimization," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 311-321.
    11. Fadare, D.A. & Nkpubre, D.O. & Oni, A.O. & Falana, A. & Waheed, M.A. & Bamiro, O.A., 2010. "Energy and exergy analyses of malt drink production in Nigeria," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 35(12), pages 5336-5346.
    12. Wansheng Yang & Jiayun Ren & Zhongqi Lin & Zhangyuan Wang & Xudong Zhao, 2018. "Study on Dehumidification Performance of a Multi-Stage Internal Cooling Solid Desiccant Adsorption Packed Bed," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-19, November.
    13. van de Bor, D.M. & Infante Ferreira, C.A., 2013. "Quick selection of industrial heat pump types including the impact of thermodynamic losses," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 312-322.
    14. Hajjaji, Noureddine & Pons, Marie-Noëlle & Houas, Ammar & Renaudin, Viviane, 2012. "Exergy analysis: An efficient tool for understanding and improving hydrogen production via the steam methane reforming process," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 392-399.
    15. Bahadori, Alireza & Vuthaluru, Hari B., 2009. "Simple methodology for sizing of absorbers for TEG (triethylene glycol) gas dehydration systems," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 34(11), pages 1910-1916.
    16. Osuolale, Funmilayo N. & Zhang, Jie, 2016. "Energy efficiency optimisation for distillation column using artificial neural network models," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 562-578.
    17. Yang, Ao & Sun, Shirui & Eslamimanesh, Ali & Wei, Shun'an & Shen, Weifeng, 2019. "Energy-saving investigation for diethyl carbonate synthesis through the reactive dividing wall column combining the vapor recompression heat pump or different pressure thermally coupled technique," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 172(C), pages 320-332.
    18. Nguyen, Nghi & Demirel, Yaşar, 2011. "Using thermally coupled reactive distillation columns in biodiesel production," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(8), pages 4838-4847.
    19. Sun, Jinsheng & Wang, Fan & Ma, Tingting & Gao, Hong & Wu, Peng & Liu, Lili, 2012. "Energy and exergy analysis of a five-column methanol distillation scheme," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 696-703.
    20. Bessa, Larissa C.B.A. & Batista, Fabio R.M. & Meirelles, Antonio J.A., 2012. "Double-effect integration of multicomponent alcoholic distillation columns," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 603-612.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:35:y:2010:i:3:p:1439-1446. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.