부산대학교 도서관

In natural gas processing plants, glycol dehydration is commonly used to remove water from the gas streams, to avoid pipeline blockage and equipment breakdown due to hydrates formation. This paper proposed a reduced order model developed based on integrated simulation-optimization approach for the glycol dehydration system, with the aim to minimize its operating cost while satisfying pipeline quality specifications. Steady-state process simulation software was used to identify important operating parameters for the glycol dehydration process; these include reboiler temperature and flow ratio of the regeneration column, and solvent flowrate. The identified parameters are built into a non-linear programming model, which was developed as a reduced order model for ease of implementation in the plant. The studied parameters are reboiler duties, hot oil, condenser, and pump, as well as TEG make-up flow rate and C[O.sub.2] equivalent (C[O.sub.2]-eq) emissions. The Pareto Front is developed to identify the minimum operating cost at different levels of water dew point specification. The work has resulted in the annual savings of more than 34.6%. Keywords: Glycol dehydration Natural gas Triethylene glycol Process simulation Process optimization Drizo process
1. Introduction Natural gas is an important fossil fuel with energy efficient benefits as compared to oil and coal. It is used as fuel and serves as the source of [...]