Petrochemicals

Process Automation During Refinery Unit Transitions

Mar 15, 2011
Robert M. Tsai
Process Automation ideas and technologies have been used sporadically for decades. However, in US refineries, automation technologies are still relatively rare. Critics of the technology will often point to complexity, high upkeep, and difficulty in changing the status quo as stumbling blocks to...

Inferential Monitoring & Optimization of Crude Units Via Hybrid Models

Mar 15, 2011
Vladimir Mahalec
Refinery crude units often process variety of feedstocks. If properties of the feed entering the crude unit are not precisely known, it is difficult to predict how changes in the tower operating conditions will affect properties of the products. Similarly, if on-line analyzers are not available, it...

Predicting Operating Regimes In Heavy Gas Oil Hydrotreating Reactors

Mar 14, 2011
Jinwen Chen
Predicting Operating Regimes in Heavy Gas Oil Hydrotreating Reactors Jinwen Chen and Mugurel Munteanu CanmetENERGY, Natural Resources Canada One Oil Patch Drive, Devon, AB, T9G 1A8, Canada Hydrotreating (HDT) or mild hydrocracking (HDC) of heavy gas oil or vacuum gas oil is an important step in...

Steam Utility Systems Are Not "Business as Usual" for Chemical Process Simulators

Mar 14, 2011
Jonathan Currie
The operating costs of a typical refinery utility system are so significant that small operational improvements can result in large annual savings. This paper introduces a new utility modelling package designed for PETRONAS to allow in-house modelling and optimization of their refinery and...

Using a Continuous MPC Algorithm to Control An Unsteady Batch Fermentation Process

Mar 14, 2011
William Stewart
Classical MPC has been leveraged to improve control on a nonlinear unsteady-state system, batch alcohol fermentation. The controller uses a hybrid model with fundamental reaction equations along with empirical process data-based modeling. More than thirty lines of batch quality control have been...

Multi-Model MPC for a Complex pH Neutralization Process

Mar 14, 2011
Weiting Tang
Control of feed pH control is an important task in chemical industries, wastewater treatment, polymerization reactions, fatty acid production and biochemical processes. However, this is a challenging problem due to (i) presence of large and varying time delays and (ii) complex time varying...

Reducing the Load on Cooling Towers through Revamping of Individual Coolers

Mar 14, 2011
Graham T. Polley
The engineering of cooling water systems involves a consideration of both hydraulic and thermal behaviour. Unfortunately this is often ignored. For instance when engineers seek to reduce the thermal load on cooling towers they will often opt for increased heat recovery (via improved heat...

New Continuous Coking Process

Mar 14, 2011
Douglas W. Sullivan
NEW CONTINUOUS COKING PROCESS A new coking process can accept resid feed from the conventional resid heater in a coking plant and continuously discharge vapor and dry petroleum coke particles. The process promotes a rapid recovery of volatiles from the resid enabling recovery of more volatiles. It...

Processing Heavy Crudes In Existing Refineries

Mar 13, 2011
Kevin Turini
Increasing amounts of heavy crudes are being produced, particularly in Canada and South America. The discount prices for these crudes, relative to light sweet crudes, make them attractive for refiners that can process them, particularly if they have a geographic advantage relative to the crude...

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