Journal of Power and Energy Engineering, 2013, 1, 47-52 47

http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jpee.2013.15007 Published Online October 2013 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/jpee)

Retrofit of the Heat Recovery System of a Petroleum

Refinery Using Pinch Analysis
John M. Joe, Ademola M. Rabiu
Department of Chemical Engineering, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Cape Town 8001, South Africa.
Email: [email protected]

Received September 2013

ABSTRACT
Energy efficiency has become an important feature in the design of process plants with the rising cost of energy and the
more stringent environmental regulations being implemented worldwide. In South Africa, as elsewhere, most process
plants built during the era of cheap energy place little emphasis on the need for energy recovery due to the abundance of
cheap utilities sources such as coal. In most of these plants, there exist significant potential for substantial process heat
recovery by conceptual design of the heat recovery system. By maximizing heat recovery from the processes, there will
be a reduction in the process utilities requirement and the associated environmental effects. Pinch analysis has been
demonstrated to be a simple but very effective tool for heat integration and optimization of chemical plants. This study
uses the pinch principle to retrofit the heat exchanger networks (HEN) of the crude distillation unit of an integrated pe-
troleum refinery to evolve a HEN that features optimum energy recovery. The network was further relaxed by trading
off energy cost with capital cost to obtain an optimal HEN topology not too different from the existing network. The
simulation works were implemented in AspenPlus v8.0 environment. Analysis revealed that 34 per cent saving on
energy usage per annum is realizable. This significant saving in energy also results in diminished gaseous pollutants
associated with energy usage.

Keywords: Plant Retrofit; Heat Integration; Crude Distillation Unit; Heat Exchanger Network; Pinch Analysis;
Optimization; Remaining Problem Analysis

1. Introduction availability of utilities sources at the time of plant con-

struction. The sharp rise in fuel price, dwindling fossil
The issues of energy sustainability and security [1] and
fuels reserves, and the growing awareness of the envi-
the increasingly stringent environmental regulations have
combined to elevate the challenge of energy efficiency to ronmental problems associated with fossil fuels consump-
a high-priority issue [2] for energy intensive industries. It tion, have however combined to drive the impetus for
was reported that the Chinese petroleum refining industry design of energy efficient plant [6]. Analyses of the energy
consumes approximately 15% of industrial fuel oil and recovery system of plants design with rule of thumbs have
10% of industrial coal [3]. Plants retrofitting towards revealed potential significant savings in utilities usage [7,
cost-effective energy recovery and hence improved energy 8] by placing better matches between the process streams.
and utilities usage become attractive and are being im- A design that maximizes energy recovery using heat ex-
plemented worldwide. It has become imperative to im- changer networks to match the process hot and cold streams,
prove on the overall economic and environmental foot- will result in minimal external heating and cooling re-
prints of existing plants to enhance their competitiveness quirements to meet the energy needs of the plant. For
[3] as well as sustainability. The ultimate aim is to syn- instance, Kemp [9] reported a potential saving of between
thesize a process that is cost-effective and environmen- 30 to 100 per cent in utilities usage in various units of a
tally benign [4]. It is expected that many process plants petroleum refinery.
in South Africa have inefficient heat recovery system. This study is motivated by the need to improve on the
Before the energy crisis, the chemical industries saw lit- energy efficiency of petroleum refineries designed with
tle use of heat integration to reduce energy usage, since rule of thumbs available at the time, by modifying the
energy (particularly from fossil fuels) was relatively in- existing heat exchanger networks and hence saving on
expensive and abundant [5]. Little emphasis was placed utilities usage and the emission of greenhouse gases from
on optimal process heat recovery because of the cheap fossil fuels consumption. The Crude Distillation Unit (CDU)

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48 Retrofit of the Heat Recovery System of a Petroleum Refinery Using Pinch Analysis

[10] consumed the most energy in a refinery, consuming obtained. A detailed modelling and simulation of the unit
as much as 2 per cent of the total crude oil processed [11]. was carried out in AspenPlus v8.0 environment for con-
It is therefore expected that the use of PT to analyze the vergence test to reconcile the streams enthalpy data. The
energy recovery system of the CDU will reveal better enthalpy data required were extracted. This was done in
matches for process energy transfer, and hence saves on order to scope the existing network for potential energy
utilities usage and the associated environmental benefits, and cost savings. Thermodynamic profiles of the process
for instance, the emission of obnoxious pollutants. It in- streams using the Problem Table algorithms, Composite
vestigated the potential saving in utility usage in the crude Curves and Grand Composite Curves were studied to
distillation unit of a petroleum refinery. A preliminary determine the targets for the hot and cold utilities and the
energy audit of the plant was carried out using AspenPlus position of the pinch. This profile also indicated the
v8.0 to locate the unit with highest utility requirement maximum energy recovery possible at the chosen ∆Tmin..
and offers the most potential energy savings. The Re-
maining Problem Analysis (RPA) variant of the Pinch 3.2. Maximum Energy Recovery Network Design
Technology was applied to locate and reassigned only
The existence of a topology trap was first investigated by
the heat exchangers that are inefficiently placed.
studying the influence of ∆Tmin on the utilities require-
2. Process Heat Integration ment. This is also used to obtain an optimum ∆Tmin for
the retrofitting study.
A design of an efficient and cost effective process heat To achieve the target obtained above, a new heat ex-
recovery system employing series of heat exchangers will changer network featuring maximum energy recovery
promote efficient utilities usage and requirement leading (MER) was obtained using the remaining problem analy-
to savings in energy cost [12]. The practical importance sis approach as developed by Tjoe and Linnhoff [15].
of HENs can be found in the fact that most industrial Retroffiting of HEN is agreed upon (for instance [5]) to
processes involve transfer of heat, either from one process be more tasking than grassroot design. For the results of
stream to another process stream or from a utility stream the retrofit project to be implementable, the resulting
to a process stream [13,14]. Consequently, the target in networks while featuring significant energy savings must
any industrial process design is to maximize the process- not be markedly different from the existing networks.
to-process heat recovery and to minimize the utility re- Otherwise the modification required will be major and
quirements. To meet this goal, cost-effective HEN con- costly offsetting the targeted saving in energy cost. Re-
sisting of one or more heat exchangers that collectively main problem analysis as a technique for retrofitting of
satisfy the energy conservation task, is of particular im- the HEN is an essential principle to develop an optimized
portance. HEN close to the existing plant topology. This is neces-
The use of Pinch Technology (PT) for retrofitting and sary because of layout considerations and the cost impli-
grassroot designs, has been found to result in considera- cations of matches.
ble saving for instance in energy usage. This saving di- The methodology will keep as much as possible to the
rectly improves the economics of the plant. Pinch tech- existing topology of the plant, meaning the exchangers
nology is one of the least complicated and most effective that did not violate the pinch were left untouched. This
technologies for Heat Exchanger Networks (HEN) de- entails identifying the heat exchangers working across
sign in the energy recovery and optimisation of energy the pinch and hence inefficiently placed or streams that
within the chemical plant. It is based on sound thermo- were inefficiently matched while leaving the other heat
dynamic principles without including heavy mathemati- exchangers intact. The objective of the evaluation of the
cal calculations and interpretations. The use of pinch tech- existing network was to use the existing area within this
nology for plant modification is centered on the trade-off network more effectively. This was done to identify the
between the savings in utilities versus the cost of the area used due to criss-crossing [15]. The new network
proposed changes in the plant. The “pinch” point represents
features maximum energy recovery.
the bottleneck of heat recovery. The key concept of pinch
analysis is the setting of energy targets [9] with the aim
3.3. MER Network Relaxation
to achieve maximum energy saving by maximising process
to process heat recovery and minimising the use of hot An optimization of the process was done for possible
and cold utilities. network relaxation. A trade-off looking at the existing
process and the MER design was carried out focusing on
3. Methods the investment and energy costs. The MER network was
examined for possible network simplification, by identi-
3.1. Data Extraction and Energy Target
fying and removing loops to trade-off capital cost of the
The design and operating data of the refinery unit were required heat transfer unit and energy cost of the saved

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 Retrofit of the Heat Recovery System of a Petroleum Refinery Using Pinch Analysis 49

utilities. This eventually entails reducing the number of ing these exchangers. Using the remaining problem analy-
the heat transfer unit thus reducing capital costs while sis approach, the network in Figure 4 was obtained. The
sacrificing some energy recovery. A comparison of the complete heat exchanger network design represents max-
cost implications of the various networks was presented. imum energy recovery of the process heat utilizing as
many as required heat transfers unit including heat ex-
4. Results changers, heaters/furnace and coolers. This network real-
The composite curve from the enthalpy data is presented ised the utilities targets set above.
in Figure 1. From the composite curve, it could be seen The relaxation process of the network is an important
that the overlapping of the cold composite and the hot part in the optimization of the network. The purpose of
composite curve indicates a high possibility of process to this step is not to eliminate all the loops and paths but to
process heat exchange. The minimum utilities require- rather reduce the paths and loops. This step involves the
ments for the plant are 72 MW and 64 MW for the hot removal of heat exchangers by allowing a small energy
and cold utility respectively at a ∆Tmin of 15˚C. This pre- penalties leading to a reduction of units within the net-
sented about 34 per cent potential reduction in utility work thus reducing capital costs. The ultimate aim is to
requirement. There is only one pinch point, 235˚C and find a balanced heat exchanger network, keeping as best
225˚C for hot and cold streams respectively. as possible the topology maximising the energy duties
In Figure 2, the plot of the cold and hot utilities at between the streams whilst not incurring heavy capital
different ∆T min shows a linear relationship with no dis- costs related to the heat exchanger areas. This network
continuity within the range. This signified the absence of has minimum impact on the current configuration of the
a topology trap. The absence of a topology trap means plant, whist giving a substantial 34 per cent saving on
that the need for a detailed cost analysis to determine the utilities.
optimum ∆Tmin using different algorithms and graphs is In the MER network, there are a number of loops and
not necessary. paths, the target of the relaxation step for this design is
The grid diagram for the existing network is presented not to remove some or all of these loops and paths. The
in Figure 3. It shows that seven exchangers are working final relaxed network is presented in Figure 5. This net-
across the pinch. Hence, there is no maximum energy work has six less heat transfer unit compared to the MER
recovery and there is no efficient use of the existing heat design.
exchangers. The cost implication of the various networks is as pre-
The focus of the study is concentrated only re-assign- sented in Table 1.

Figure 1. The composite curve at ∆Tmin of 15˚C.

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50 Retrofit of the Heat Recovery System of a Petroleum Refinery Using Pinch Analysis

Figure 2. Plot of the utility requirements vs ∆Tmin.

Figure 3. The existing heat exchanger network showing across the pinch violation.

Figure 4. The maximum energy recovery network.

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 Retrofit of the Heat Recovery System of a Petroleum Refinery Using Pinch Analysis 51

Figure 5. The final relaxed network.

Table 1. Cost comparisons of the heat exchanger networks.

HEN Description Existing HEN MER Network Final Relaxed HEN
Utility Costs ($) 222,536 115,670 149,954
Capital Cost (Heat exchangers) ($) 865,045 1,199,490 1,010,176
Capital Cost (Furnace, Coolers) ($) 589,367 542,373 497,866

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