Abstract
Energy and exergy balances were evaluated for a pre-distillation unit (Un-0100) of an aromatics plant belonging to a Portuguese refinery. In its overall analysis, the Un-100 obtained an energetic efficiency of 13.4 % and an exergetic efficiency of 2.3 %. The equipment that has higher energy losses in this unit are the air coolers, representing 59.9 % of the energy losses, i.e., most of the energy lost in this unit is due to the cooling process. The irreversibility observed in these equipment groups was 11.2 %. Moreover, the furnace represents 15.6 % of energy losses, but these component stands out in the irreversibility analysis, 56.3 % of the total. Based on these values, it can be said that this equipment presents a high potential of improvement of its energetic and exergetic performance. These results, concerning a small part of a more general study about the energetic performance on an aromatics plant, clearly show the need to establish complemental energy and exergy balances in the energetic performance analysis of any industrial unit
Details
| Journal Section | Regular Original Research Article |
|---|---|
| Authors | |
| Publication Date | May 31, 2017 |
| Published in Issue | Year 2017 |