Enriched Oxygen for Crude Oil Preheating in Petroleum Refining

Abstract

The crude distillation unit is one of the energy-intensive processes in the refinery. This is because of the crude preheater that suffers from excessive energy loss due to the use of air in the combustion furnace. Alternatively, fuel combustion by enriched oxygen can improve heat efficiency, minimize fuel consumption and reduce emissions. In this paper, enriched oxygen has been simulated by UniSim for preheating Kuwaiti crude in one of the distillation columns in the Clean Fuels Project. Results show that the use of 30 mol% of concentrated oxygen reduced fuel consumption by 5%. Carbon dioxide emissions were also minimized by 22,240 tons per year. A membrane system made from perfluoropolymer was simulated for the production of 5,298 tons of enriched oxygen (per day) and it required an area of 39,000 m 2 with a capital investment of 6.9 million $.