Economic Analysis and Environmental Impact Assessment of Heat Pump-Assisted Distillation in a Gas Fractionation Unit

Lee, Jisook; Son, Yongho; Lee, Kwang Soon; Won, Wangyun

doi:10.3390/en12050852

Cited by 14 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…To overcome this problem, we carried out heat integration coupled with a heat pump (CP‐1) to form a heat exchanger network between the hot and cold process streams [37] . A heat pump is a unit that transfers heat energy from a source of heat to what is called a thermal reservoir [38] . By absorbing heat from a cold process stream and discharging it to a hot process stream, a heat pump moves thermal energy in the opposite direction of spontaneous heat transfer.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[37] A heat pump is a unit that transfers heat energy from a source of heat to what is called a thermal reservoir. [38] By absorbing heat from a cold process stream and discharging it to a hot process stream, a heat pump moves thermal energy in the opposite direction of spontaneous heat transfer. In the proposed process, the vapor stream is compressed and subsequently cooled, and therefore discharged heat energy from the cooler (C-1) can be utilized in the stream to be heated.…”

Section: Heat Integrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Toward Economical and Sustainable Production of Renewable Plastic: Integrative System‐Level Analyses

Kim

Won

2022

ChemSusChem

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2,5-Furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA) is one of the promising renewable plastic monomers enabling to address several environmental issues, instead of petroleum-based terephthalic acid (TPA). In this study, an integrative process for the coproduction of FDCA and furfural as well as activated carbon was developed, and the economic feasibility and environmental sustainability for the proposed process were evaluated. In the proposed process, there were major four catalytic conversion reactions: (1) hydrolysis of biomass to its derivatives (cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin), (2) dehydration of hemicellulose to furfural, (3) dehydration of cellulose to 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), and (4) successive oxidation of HMF to FDCA. Partic-ularly, a heat exchanger network coupled with a heat pump was established to minimize the utility consumption, thereby reducing 72 % of the heating requirement. Techno-economic analysis revealed that the minimum selling price of FDCA was $1380 ton À 1 , which is comparable to that of petroleum-based TPA ($1445 ton À 1 ). Uncertainty analysis using the Monte Carlo simulation method was employed to quantify the risk associated with the unforeseen market condition. From the life-cycle assessment, we observed that the proposed process is more environmentally sustainable than conventional TPA production in terms of climate change and fossil depletion metrics.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Heat Integrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward Economical and Sustainable Production of Renewable Plastic: Integrative System‐Level Analyses

Kim

Won

2022

ChemSusChem

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“…Thermal coupling of distillation columns is traditionally proposed as an energy efficient system used in combination with pressure change [17]. Heat pump application is mostly limited to close boiling point mixtures fractionation [18], such as alkanes [19] or other mixtures of hydrocarbon gases [20]. Application in different systems, such as benzene-toluene mixtures, has been studied recently [21].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Deeper study of the compression heat pump technology and its application showed multiple examples of its application in the available literature, even in industrial sphere [28]. Several heat pump designs were studied from the techno-economic point of view in [28], which are able to deliver useful heat at temperatures over 100 • C. Compression heat pump applications in various industry branches, including sugar production and paper drying have been presented in a best practice brochure by the U.S. Department of Energy [29], while other ones in refining, petrochemistry, and gases fractionation were reported in [19,22,24]. Significant energy intensity decrease in the aromatics fractionation process can be achieved by optimized compression heat pump design in [21] with similar findings presented in [24] for acetone-methanol mixture splitting.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Novel Concept of Cogeneration-Integrated Heat Pump-Assisted Fractionation of Alkylation Reactor Effluent for Increased Power Production and Overall CO2 Emissions Decrease

et al. 2020

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Alkylate produced by catalyzed reaction of isobutane and olefin-rich streams is a desired component for gasoline blending. Fractionation of the alkylation reactor effluent is energy demanding due to the presence of close boiling point components and solutions cutting its energy intensity; expenses associated with this process are investigated intensely nowadays. This paper presents a novel conceptual design and techno-economic analysis of alkylation reaction effluent fractionation revamp to reach a cut in energy costs of the fractionation process without the need to revamp the rectification columns themselves, providing thus an alternative approach to a more sustainable alkylation process. Two cases are considered—A. additional steam turbine installation or B. combustion engine-driven heat pump-assisted rectification. Mathematical modeling of the considered system and its revamp is applied using the “frozen technology” approach. Real system operation features and seasonal variations are included considering the refinery’s combined heat and power (CHP) unit operation and CO2 emissions balance both internal and external to the refinery. Case A yields an expectable yearly benefit (saved energy minus additionally consumed energy minus CO2 emissions increase; expressed in financial terms) of €110–140 thousand, net present value (NPV) of −€18 to €272 thousand and produces 3.3 GWh/year of electric energy. Case B delivers a benefit of €900–1200 thousand, NPV of −€293 to €2823 thousand while producing 33 GWh/year of electricity. Both cases exhibit analogous simple payback periods (8–10 years). Marginal electric efficiency of Case B (78.3%) documents the energy integration level in this case, exploiting the system and CHP unit operation synergies. CHP unit summer operation mode and steam network restrictions significantly affect the seasonal benefit of Case B. CO2 emissions increase in both cases, Case A and Case B, considering the refinery level. However, including external CO2 emissions leads to emissions decrease in both cases of up to 26 kton/year (Case B.) The presented results document the viability of the proposed concepts comparable to the traditional (reference) solution of a high performance (COP = 8) heat pump while their performance sensitivity stresses the need for complex techno-economic assessment.

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“…One of the most attractive solutions is using cleaner electricity generated from sustainable energy sources, such as wind power and solar cells. Heat pump (HP) technology, which allows for the use of the waste heat released at the condenser for supplying energy to the reboiler, is a cost-effective approach to reducing the energy requirement of the distillation column [8][9][10][11]. This technology can be beneficial in the case of the small temperature difference between the overhead and bottom of the column and the high heat load.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enhancement of a R-410A Reclamation Process Using Various Heat-Pump-Assisted Distillation Configurations

et al. 2019

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Distillation for R-410A reclamation from a waste refrigerant is an energy-intensive process. Thus, various heat pump configurations were proposed to enhance the energy efficiency of existing conventional distillation columns for separating R-410A and R-22. One new heat pump configuration combining a vapor compression (VC) heat pump with cold water and hot water cycles was suggested for easy operation and control. Both advantages and disadvantages of each heat pump configuration were also evaluated. The results showed that the mechanical vapor recompression heat pump with top vapor superheating saved up to 29.5%, 100.0%, and 10.5% of the energy required in the condenser duty, reboiler duty, and operating cost, respectively, compared to a classical heat pump system, and 85.2%, 100.0%, and 60.8%, respectively, compared to the existing conventional column. In addition, this work demonstrated that the operating pressure of a VC heat pump could be lower than that of the existing distillation column, allowing for an increase in capacity of up to 20%. In addition, replacing the throttle valve with a hydraulic turbine showed isentropic expansion can decrease the operating cost by up to 20.9% as compared to the new heat pump configuration without a hydraulic turbine. Furthermore, the reduction in carbon dioxide emission was investigated to assess the environmental impact of all proposed sequences.

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Economic Analysis and Environmental Impact Assessment of Heat Pump-Assisted Distillation in a Gas Fractionation Unit

Cited by 14 publications

References 16 publications

Toward Economical and Sustainable Production of Renewable Plastic: Integrative System‐Level Analyses

Toward Economical and Sustainable Production of Renewable Plastic: Integrative System‐Level Analyses

Novel Concept of Cogeneration-Integrated Heat Pump-Assisted Fractionation of Alkylation Reactor Effluent for Increased Power Production and Overall CO2 Emissions Decrease

Enhancement of a R-410A Reclamation Process Using Various Heat-Pump-Assisted Distillation Configurations

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