Design of a Petroleum Preflash Column.pdf

Design of a Petroleum Preflash Column William L. Luyben* Department of Chemical Engineering, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 18015, United States ABSTRACT: Crude oil contains saturated hydrocarbon chemical components with boiling points that range from very low (methane) to very high. A small preflash column is frequently used upstream of the main pipestill to remove light ends and some of the naphtha to reduce the load on the pipestill furnace and column. The major design optimization variables in the preflash column include pressure, reflux-drum temperature, and furnace coil outlet temperature. This paper explores the design of a typical preflash column. 1. INTRODUCTION The first unit operation in a petroleum refinery is a pipestill (crude distillation unit) that separates the crude oil into various streams on the basis of boiling points. The amount of crude oil consumed worldwide1 is astronomical (84 × 106 barrels/day in 2009). Oil consumption in the United States is 18 × 106 barrels/day. There are 148 U.S. refineries. The largest of these is the ExxonMobil refinery in Baytown, TX, that handles 560 000 barrels/day. Typical crude distillation units contain three columns: a preflash column, an atmospheric pipestill, and a vacuum pipestill. Each of these columns has an upstream furnace to partially vaporize the feed. Each has an overhead condenser and reflux drum. There are no reboilers. The major source of vapor going up the column is the vapor in the partially vaporizer effluent stream from the furnace. A small amount of stripping steam is added at the base of the column to remove very light components and prevent them from going downstream to the atmospheric pipestill. The atmospheric and vacuum pipestills also have sidestream strippers, from which various products are produced, and pumparounds, which remove high-temperature heat at intermediate locations in the column. Two product streams leave the reflux drum of the preflash column. A vapor stream co