Petrochemicals

Many of the practical problems in achieving high performance feedback control for challenging applications have been addressed by modifications to the basic PID control law. These modifications include set-point filters that allow both load rejection and set-point following objectives to be...

Fouling behaviour is a crucial consideration in the selection and design of heat exchangers to be used in refinery pre-heat trains. We make the following observations regarding fouling associated with the heating of crude oil: 1. The fouling rate decreases with increase in wall shear stress 2. The...

The changing landscape of the ethylene industry requiring more feedstock flexibility and upstream and downstream integration increases the complexity of cracker design and management exacerbating challenges traditionally present in ethylene plant operations such as the fouling phenomena. The...

Shell-tube type heat exchangers are often used to exchange heat between a high pressure fluid and a low pressure fluid, and the pressure difference between the two fluids could be significantly high. In the event of a partial- or full-rupture of a tube, a problem may arise in that a transient...

Trip & Throttle Valve Reliability Trip & Throttle (or Stop) valves are used in ethylene plants to isolate the energy to steam turbines when required. They are critical Safety Protection components with a high impact on a plant’s reliability; however, they operate under tough conditions like...

Cracking furnaces are the heart of the ethylene plant. Ethylene producers purchase various feedstocks ranging from “Gas” feeds: ethane, propane, butane and ethane propane mix, “Liquid” feeds: NGL’s, naphtha and up to “Heavy liquid” feeds: condensates, atmospheric gas oil (AGO), and vacuum gas oil (...

Autothermal reforming processes of hydrocarbon liquids such as diesel fuels are spotlighted as methods to produce hydrogen for Fuel cell. However, the use of higher hydrocarbons as feedstocks for hydrogen production causes some problems which increase the catalyst deactivation by the carbon...

Braskem, a Brazilian player among petrochemical manufacturers, produces monomers, resins and chemicals specialties. The overall Ethylene capacity is 3,600 KTA, distributed in six Olefins plants. Naphtha is the main raw material of the petrochemical and plastic productive chain in Brazil, followed...

It is becoming a widespread norm that refineries are processing an increasing quantity of heavy and sour crudes than ever before. The depleting oil reserves of light sweet crudes have resulted in the need for deeper exploration. Considerable finds in the Orinoco belt of Venezuela, California and...