Chapter 2 Literature Review

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

Two types of systems approach considering LNG is available: Synthesis and Operation. This work is related the later one and thus, the available literatures on LNG processes are discussed in the following sections. Besides this, due to the unavailability of academic research on work exchange networks, similar type of networks such as heat exchanger networks is highlighted to understand the complexity and challenge of this novel network. 2.1 LNG Refrigeration Processes Due to the energy intensive nature of cryogenic refrigeration processes used in air liquefaction plants and in the production of LNG, process optimization is extremely advantageous as optimal process design and operation can result in substantial capital and energy cost savings. An efficient facility is also a greener facility as it reduces carbon and pollutant emissions into the environment. As a consequence, there had been numerous publications by academic researchers on the optimization of cryogenic processes in the open literature. Majority of the publications centered on the optimal design of cryogenic processes. There had been significant works on the synthesis of pure refrigerant cascade systems. For instance, a work by Vaidyaraman et al.8, focused on the optimal synthesis of refrigeration stages and their respective refrigerants to satisfy a given cooling load and corresponding temperature and pressure while minimizing capital and operational costs. The work was later extended to incorporate the use of mixed refrigerant where number of

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Chapter 2 Literature Review

different types of mixed refrigerant cycles was calculated to minimize the total work required by the system by determining temperature, pressure, and composition of each stream9. Due to the complex and non-convex nature of this NLP model, they utilized an iterative approach by incorporating FORTRAN90 and MINOS. There had been also significant works in mixed refrigerant cryogenic processes. Lee et al.10 proposed a combined thermodynamic and NLP approach to optimize the selection of MR compositions in addition to the selection of key process variables such as refrigerant flow and pressure levels. Recently11, Del Nogal et al. published a mathematical optimization framework based on stochastic algorithms for the optimal design of mixed refrigerant cycles. Hasan et al.12 documented their works on the optimization of compressor operations in an LNG plant to minimize power compressor power requirements via NLP formulation. The work focused on the operational optimization of existing and well known LNG refrigeration process namely Air-Products C3MR. Later13, they published an MINLP formulation to optimize compressor load among any number of refrigeration cycles. They demonstrated the benefit of their model by utilizing the latest AP-XTM systems. As stated by Hasan et al., the aforementioned works serve as preliminary investigations into the potential cost savings that could be derived from operational optimization of existing facilities around the world. As such, operational factors such as variations in NG feed composition, flow rate, and MR compositions were not taken into consideration in their preliminary investigation and formulation. Hence, this work serves as a more extensive study before developing the model as any number of cycles so that an in-depth knowledge is gained on the behavior of the existing refrigeration system.

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Chapter 2 Literature Review

This work focuses on the optimization of the AP-XTM system. There are two ways in which an optimization could be carried out on the AP-XTM system, namely on the design and the operation. Since the AP-XTM system is a relatively new patented technology by Air-Products, the former aim is not feasible as the detailed technical configurations and setups are proprietary and not available in the public domain. In addition, design optimizations are also subjected to factors including client priorities, costs, production levels and availability concerns. The alternate approach would be to develop an operational optimization formulation based upon a simpler model built from general arrangements and flow schematics of the AP-XTM system. This approach is more feasible as basic schematics of the AP-XTM system are available from Air-Products technical publication as well as from the AP-XTM patent6. Although detailed information on the stream flows, temperatures, pressures, and equipment sizes are not documented, the formulated model shall be generalized to accept the widest possible range of specifications such that its applicability is not restricted to a single case or scenario. This generality enables the optimization model to be applied over a range of operating conditions including process fluctuations in the NG feed flow rate, compositions and cooling water temperature. 2.2 Process Networks The chemical industry accounts for about 20% of the total industrial energy consumption in the USA14. Thus, conserving energy in chemical plants is crucial. The two common forms of energy in chemical plants are heat and work. Even though work is more expensive than heat, heat integration has been studied far more extensively than work integration. This in spite the fact that many chemical plants such as gas processing and

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transportation, Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), refineries, petrochemicals, air enrichment, ammonia, fertilizer, etc. use air, gases, streams, and/or refrigerants at high pressures, and compression work is a major need in these plants. In such plants, some streams need work for compression, while others can produce work through expansion. For instance, consider the LNG plant in Figure 2.1. Here, high-pressure natural gas (NG) is subcooled by liquid CO2 in a multi-stream heat exchanger (MCHE) and then expanded to a lower pressure to exchange heat with liquid N2. Then, it enters a turbine to further lower its pressure to reach its storage pressure. The high-pressure liquid N2 passes through two MCHEs to cool NG. It uses one compressor and two turbines to provide cooling as well as produce work. Thus, while the MCHEs address heat integration, the plant has four separate turbines and two compressors that are not systematically integrated to minimize work requirements. If these turbines and compressors are integrated on one or more SSTCs, then the losses arising in separate turbines/compressors from the supply and delivery of work in disparate forms could be reduced or eliminated. Furthermore, it would also be possible to integrate both heat and work simultaneously to conserve energy further in the same network. In fact, the LNG industry in Qatar and other plants have already begun exploring some simple options on an ad hoc basis to save energy by using simple 2-stream SSTC units (one high-pressure and one low-pressure stream). This idea of SSTC is a straightforward extension of a steam/gas turbine running a compressor using a common shaft. The only difference is that a high-pressure stream replaces steam/gas in the turbine driver. Of course, the idea can be generalized to include multiple turbines with several high-pressure streams running multiple compressors with several low-pressure streams using a single shaft. Configuring a network for exchanging

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Chapter 2 Literature Review

work in this manner may be called Work Exchange Network Synthesis or WENS. It is a useful and direct extension of the well known Heat Exchange Network Synthesis (HENS)15,16. While the literature has studied networks for heat exchangers15,16, steam turbines17,18, reactors19,20, separation21, mass exchange22,23, fuel gas24, and utility25, surprisingly, no work has so far developed a systematic procedure for exchanging work among multiple streams by matching high-pressure and low-pressure streams.

Figure 2.1 Process Flow Diagram (PFD) of an LNG process Shin et al.26 proposed a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) formulation for optimizing boil-off gas (BOG) compressor operations to minimize the total average power consumption in an LNG receiving and re-gasification terminal. Hasan et al.27 optimized compressor operations for propane pre-cooled mixed refrigerant (C3MR) cycles and minimized the total power cost for the refrigerant compressors. Del Nogal et al.28,29 reported a model to obtain an optimal power system for utility networks. They
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considered gas turbine, steam turbine, helper motor/generator, and electric motor as drivers to satisfy the given power demands of several compressor stages. They addressed decisions to select appropriate gas/steam turbines as drivers for these stages. Aspelund et al.30 proposed a graphical heuristic methodology based on Extended Pinch Analysis and Design (ExPAnD) to utilize pressure-exergy for minimizing energy requirements in sub-ambient processes such as LNG. They used compressors and turbines separately to minimize the energy usage. However, they did not explicitly mention the use of single-shaft turbine-compressor combinations to exchange energy. Besides this, they only considered thermodynamic rather than cost aspects. Since compressors and turbines are some of the most expensive equipment in a chemical plant, a highly energy-effective process may be uneconomical. Besides, a heuristics-based methodology may not offer the most economical network. Therefore, there is a need for a cost-based structural optimization approach for work exchange network synthesis as presented in this paper. Razib et al.31 proposed a Mixed Integer Nonlinear Programming (MINLP) formulation for integrating pressure energy among multiple streams using compressors alone. For this, they used a staged superstructure for each stream. However, they did not consider operational constraints such as surging and choking, and did not correlate speed to work exchange. They also did not include both utility heaters and coolers in their network.

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2.3 Research Focus Based on the aforementioned discussions and challenges, this research project focuses on the following aspects. 1. An NLP model is developed to minimize the compressor load among different cycles in the latest AP-XTM refrigeration system. This optimization approach offers optimal operational parameters for this process in different conditions such as weather fluctuation, feed NG composition, MR composition, etc. It is worth to mention that the model is able to optimally produce realistic operational parameters that are very close to the real operations though the real design cannot be utilized due to the proprietary restriction of this system. 2. As it is found that compressors are the preeminent energy consumers in the most chemical and petrochemical industries, utilization of available energy can economically save a lot of energy. Therefore, an MINLP formulation is utilized to exchange both pressure and temperature energy among different streams to minimize the total cost of the network. This study reveals that it is possible to save a significant amount of energy while utilizing such a network.

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