Productivity streams

Hgure 1.1 Synthesis is the creation of a process to transform feed streams into product streams. Simulation predicts how it would behave if it was constructed. 

ANstreams = enthalpy change between feed and product streams AI/react = reaction enthalpy (negative in the case of exothermic reactions)... 

The dominant heating and cooling duties associated with a distillation column are the reboiler and condenser duties. In general, however, there will be other duties associated with heating and cooling of feed and product streams. These sensible heat duties usually will be small in comparison with the latent heat changes in reboilers and condensers. 

Figure 5.5 can be used to place the different product streams with respect to the objectives required for commercial octane numbers for Eurosuper and Superplus. It is clearly evident that the preparation of Superplus (RON 98, MON 88) will require careful screening of its components. 

The flowscheme of the typical refinery during the period 1950-1970 was essentially focused on the production of gasoline, diesel oil, domestic heating oil and industrial fuel-oil. Except for heavy naphtha, the product streams underwent no deep conversion. 

Some natural gases contain high H2S contents above 30% in some Canadian producing wells, where the sulphur is recovered from the product stream and is sold commercially. 

PVT characteristics - which describe whether a production stream will be in gas or liquid form at a particular temperature and pressure. 

In addition to fluid properties it is important to know how volumes and rates w change at the wellhead over the life of the well or field. Production profiles are required for oil, water and gas in order to size facilities, and estimates of wellhead temperatures and pressures (over time) are used to determine how the character of the production stream will change. If reservoir pressure support is planned, details of injected water or gas which may ultimately appear in the well stream are required. 

If oil and water are mixed as an emulsion, dehydration becomes much more difficult. Emulsions can form as oil-in-water or water-in-oil if mixed production streams are subjected to severe turbulence, as might occur in front of perforations in the borehole. Emulsions can be encouraged to break (or destabilise) using chemicals, heat or just gentle agitation. Chemical destabilisation is the most common method and laboratory tests would normally be conducted to determine the most suitable combination of chemicals. 

If extra treatment capacity is not cost effective another option may be to handle the produced water differently. The water treatment process is defined by the production stream and disposal specifications. If disposal specifications can be relaxed less treatment will be required or, a larger capacity of water could be treated. It is unlikely that environmental regulators will tolerate an increase in oil content, but if much of the... 

Urea is produced from liquid NH and gaseous CO2 at high, pressure and temperature both reactants are obtained from an ammonia-synthesis plant. The latter is a by-product stream, vented from the CO2 removal section of the ammonia-synthesis plant. The two feed components are deUvered to the high pressure urea reactor, usually at a mol ratio >2.5 1. Depending on the feed mol ratio, more or less carbamate is converted to urea and water per pass through the reactor. 

The significance of industrial acrolein production may be clearer if one considers the two major uses of acrolein—direct oxidation to acryUc acid and reaction to produce methionine via 3-methyhnercaptopropionaldehyde. In acryUc acid production, acrolein is not isolated from the intermediate production stream. The 1990 acryUc acid production demand in the United States alone accounted for more than 450,000 t/yr (28), with worldwide capacity approaching 1,470,000 t/yr (29). Approximately 0.75 kg of acrolein is required to produce one kilogram of acryUc acid. The methionine production process involves the reaction of acrolein with methyl mercaptan. Worldwide methionine production was estimated at about 170,000 t/yr in 1990 (30). (See Acrylic ACID AND DERIVATIVES AmINO ACIDS, SURVEY.)... 

Steps. Thermal-swing cycles have at least two steps, adsorption and heating. A cooling step is also normally used after the heating step. A portion of the feed or product stream can be utilized for heating, or an independent fluid can be used. Easily condensable contaminants may be regenerated with noncondensable gases and recovered by condensation. Water-iminiscible solvents are stripped with steam, which may be condensed and separated from the solvent by decantation. Fuel and/or air may be used when the impurities are to be burned or incinerated. 

Because RPSA is appHed to gain maximum product rate from minimum adsorbent, single beds are the norm. In such cycles where the steps take only a few seconds, flows to and from the bed are discontinuous. Therefore, surge vessels are usuaHy used on feed and product streams to provide unintermpted flow. Some RPSA cycles incorporate delay steps unique to these processes. During these steps, the adsorbent bed is completely isolated and any pressure gradient is aHowed to dissipate (68). The UOP Polybed PSA system uses five to ten beds to maximize the recovery of the less selectively adsorbed component and to extend the process to larger capacities (69). 

Dual solvent fractional extraction (Fig. 7b) makes use of the selectivity of two solvents (A and B) with respect to consolute components C and D, as defined in equation 7. The two solvents enter the extractor at opposite ends of the cascade and the two consolute components enter at some point within the cascade. Solvent recovery is usually an important feature of dual solvent fractional extraction and provision may also be made for reflux of part of the product streams containing C or D. Simplified graphical and analytical procedures for calculation of stages for dual solvent extraction are available (5) for the cases where is constant and the two solvents A and B are not significantly miscible. In general, the accurate calculation of stages is time-consuming (28) but a computer technique has been developed (56). 

Since the early 1980s olefin plants in the United States were designed to have substantial flexibiHty to consume a wide range of feedstocks. Most of the flexibiHty to use various feedstocks is found in plants with associated refineries, where integrated olefins plants can optimize feedstocks using either gas Hquids or heavier refinery streams. Companies whose primary business is the production of ethylene derivatives, such as thermoplastics, tend to use ethane and propane feedstocks which minimize by-product streams and maximize ethylene production for their derivative plants. 

HF is used as a source of fluorine for production of all the various fluorocarbon products. HF reacts in the presence of a suitable catalyst and under the appropriate temperature and pressure conditions with various organic chemicals to yield a family of products. A by-product stream of hydrochloric acid may be co-produced. 

Plasma fractionation is unusual in pharmaceutical manufacturing because it involves the processing of proteins and the preparation of multiple products from a single feedstock. A wide range of unit operations are utilized to accompHsh these tasks. They are Hsted in Table 3 some are common to a number of products and all must be closely integrated. The overall manufacturing operation can be represented as a set of individual product streams, each based on the processing of an intermediate product derived from a mainstream fractionation process (Fig. 1). 

Hot product char carries heat into the entrained bed to obtain the high heat-transfer rates required. Feed coal must be dried and pulverized. A portion of the char recovered from the reactor product stream is cooled and discharged as product. The remainder is reheated to 650—870°C in a char heater blown with air. Gases from the reactor are cooled and scmbbed free of product tar. Hydrogen sulfide is removed from the gas, and a portion is recycled to serve as the entrainment medium. 

Commercial VPO of propane—butane mixtures was in operation at Celanese Chemical Co. plants in Texas and/or Canada from the 1940s to the 1970s. The principal primary products were acetaldehyde, formaldehyde, methanol, and acetone. The process was mn at low hydrocarbon conversion (3—10%) and a pressure in excess of 790 kPa (7.8 atm). These operations were discontinued because of various economic factors, mainly the energy-intensive purification system required to separate the complex product streams. 

Ton-exchange systems in process appHcations may be batch, semicontinuous, or continuous. Batch operations are not common but, where used, involve a ketde with mechanical agitation. Injecting with air or an inert gas is an alternative. A screened siphon or drain valve is requited to prevent resin from leaving with the product stream. 

Solid-Bed Dehydration. Sihca gel, bauxite, activated alurnina, or molecular sieves can be used for removing dissolved water to meet propane specifications. The soHd-bed dehydrators are used in a cycHc adsorption process. After an adsorption cycle has completed, the bed is heated with a purge gas or a vaporized Hquid-product stream for regeneration. If the latter is used, the Hquid product is condensed, separated from the free water, and returned to the process. After the beds are regenerated, they are cooled and returned to the adsorption cycle. 

The product stream contains gases and soflds. The soflds are removed by using either cyclones, filters, or both in combination. Cyclones are devices used to separate soflds from fluids using vortex flow. The product gas stream must be cooled before being sent to the collection and refining system. The ALMA process uses cyclones as a primary separation technique with filters employed as a final separation step after the off-gas has been cooled and before it is sent to the collection and refining system (148). As in the fixed-bed process, the reactor off-gas must be incinerated to destroy unreacted butane and by-products before being vented to the atmosphere. 

Maleic anhydride in the product stream is removed and converted to a maleic acid solution in a water scmbbing system. The maleic acid is sent to the hydrogenation to produce THF while the reactor off-gas after scmbbing is sent to the recycle compressor. A small purge stream is sent to incineration. 

Capacities of maleic anhydride faciUties worldwide are presented in Table 7. The switch of feedstock from benzene to butane was completed in the United States in 1985, being driven by the lower unit cost and lower usage of butane in addition to the environmental pressures on the use of benzene. Worldwide, the switch to butane is continuing with 58% of the total world maleic anhydride capacity based on butane feedstock in 1992. This capacity percentage for butane has increased from only 6% in 1978. In 1992, 38% of the total world maleic anhydride capacity was based on benzene feedstock and 4% was derived from other sources, primarily phthaUc anhydride by-product streams. 

Fig. 42. Integrated distillation/pervaporation plant for ethanol recovery from fermentors. The distillation columns concentrate the ethanol—water mixture from 5 to 80%. The pervaporation membrane produces a 99.5% ethanol product stream and a 40—50% ethanol stream that is sent back to the distillation...

Environmental Factors. The control, recovery, and disposal of mercury-bearing waste products are as important to the mercurials industry as the manufacturing process. The difficulties involved in removing mercury from waste-product streams and the problems of recovery or disposal have resulted in a substantial reduction in the number of manufacturers of mercury compounds as well as in the variety of mercury compounds being manufactured. Moreover, the manufacturing process used for a mercury compound may not necessarily be the most efficient or economical. Rather, the choice may depend on the nature of the by-products, the toxic hazard of the process, and the ease of recovery of the mercury from the waste-product stream. 

Foam spray dryiag coasists of forcing gas, usuaHy air or nitrogea, iato the product stream at 1.38 MPa (200 psi) ahead of the pump ia the normal spray dryer circuit. This method improves some of the characteristics of dried milk, such as dispersibHity, bulk deasity, and uniformity. The foam—spray dryer can accept a condensed product with 60% total soHds, as compared to 50% without the foam process. The usual neutralization of acid whey is avoided with the foam—spray dryer (see Drying Foams Sprays). 

Eor vapor-phase processes, the product stream from the nitrator must be separated. The nitroparaffins, excess propane, and NO plus NO2 (which are converted back to HNO ), are recovered. The oxygenated products are removed, but there are generally insufficient amounts for economic recovery. 

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