Debottlenecking of a Two Tower C2 Splitter

The importance of understanding both the capacity and efficiency of modern high performance trays in the successful revamp of distillation columns performing critical separations will be illustrated. A case study of the revamp of a two tower C2 Splitter located in an Ethylene plant operated by LG Chem in Yeosu, South Korea will be described in detail. This C2 Splitter was previously revamped twice using a combination of countercurrent and co-current trays. LG Chem Desired to maximize ethylene production and to reduce the slippage of ethylene being lost in the bottoms product. The case study will explain how the towers were subsequently revamped using a combination of high performance cross-flow SUPERFRAC® XT trays and co-current flow ULTRA-FRAC® trays at optimized tray spacings achieving an increase in ethylene production and an order of magnitude lower ethylene slip. Operating data will be presented showing the performance of the revised tower configurations.