Nombre: SAMUEL VÍTOR DE ALMEIDA FRANCO
Tipo: MSc dissertation
Fecha de publicación: 31/03/2020
Supervisor:
Nombre |
Rol |
|---|---|
| ANA PAULA MENEGUELO | Advisor * |
Junta de examinadores:
| Nombre |
Rol |
|---|---|
| ANA PAULA MENEGUELO | Advisor * |
| CINTIA MARANGONI | External Examiner * |
| DANIEL DA CUNHA RIBEIRO | Internal Examiner * |
Resumen: In view of the growth in the use of natural gas in the national and global energy matrix, the
importance of studies dealing with its processing increases. The Natural Gas Processing Unit
(NGPU) is responsible for separating natural gas and its contaminants into components of
commercial interest, for example, Natural Gas Liquid (NGL) and Sale Gas (SG). This
processing can be carried out by means of different layouts of units, each with different
characteristics regarding energy consumption, raw material, separation efficiency and safety
levels. Among the different processing unit layouts, it is possible to mention considerable
differences regarding the cooling mechanism used in such a way that the combination of
turboexpander with mechanical refrigeration (TEMR) stood out for its profitability and
recovery efficiency. However, it is necessary to evaluate the energetic behavior of the
mechanism with different qualities of the natural gas that feeds the unit. In this work, an
optimization study of a unit represented by the TEMR scheme contained in the base case was
carried out by minimizing the specific energy consumption [kWh/kg of SG] including the
restriction of a minimum limit of 90% of C3
+ recovery and by manipulation of the following
parameters: temperatures of the heat exchanger outlet flows, fractionating column pressures,
splitter ratio, compressor and expander outlet pressures and reboilers temperatures. Three
different natural gas riches were analyzed: 11.2% ( Very rich, composition 1), 8.9% (rich,
composition 2) and 5.5% of C3
+ (poor, composition 3). The results were submitted to
evaluation criteria: energy, economic, recovery, production, safety and quality performance.
There was a reduction in specific energy consumption [kWh/kg of SG] of 10.7% for the very
rich input current, 12.9% for rich and 21.1% for poor and a consequent increase in the
margin economic [R$/h] for the three types of feed gas stream by 0.03%, 0.05% and 0.35%,
respectively. In addition, the reduction in specific energy consumption implied a reduction in
aspects of the adopted safety criterion (higher process pressure and higher thermal load required
in the chillers) and a decrease in the recovery performance of the flowchart by up to 3.8%; and
met the regulated characteristics (quality) of the Sale Gas.
