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2007; 2: 431437 Published online 13 September 2007 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI:10.1002/apj.076
Research Article
ABSTRACT: The constant tightening of environmental regulations and the ongoing need to reduce operating costs have posed a challenge for the design of any chemical process. Process engineers use process simulators to help them perform calculations that will, ultimately, result in design parameters or operating conditions for a plant or process. Exergy is a potential indicator that can aid in the design of energy efcient chemical processes and plants. The exergy concept has been increasingly used as a tool to locate the critical energy use in many industrial processes, both chemical and non-chemical. However, currently most process simulators in the market do not offer the capability of calculating the exergy of a process. An open-source exergy calculator has been created by embedding the calculation procedure in an open-source chemical process simulator. This improves process simulation by including a potential tool for design teams to quickly evaluate several process options in detail in order to understand their energy utilisation. A simple exergy analysis for a gas processing facility is used to demonstrate the capabilities of the tool. The analysis shows where the largest quantities of exergy are being consumed within the plant, thus pointing to areas where improvement in energy usage can be made. The use of exergy as a potential design and retrot tool is also discussed. 2007 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. KEYWORDS: exergy; exergy analysis; energy balance; process simulation; process design
INTRODUCTION
Process design has been always an extremely important step in the creation of a new chemical process or plant. The constant tightening of environmental regulations and the ongoing need to reduce operating costs have posed a challenge for the design of any chemical process; this is also the case for existing processes that have to be retrotted to comply with the changing environmental regulations. In process design, the capabilities provided by computers (e.g. fast calculation, large data storage, logical decisions) allow engineers to solve larger problems and to do it much more rapidly; furthermore, with the aid of computer software the engineers role can be shifted from problem solving to planning, concept development, interpretation and implementation (Peters and Timmerhaus, 1991). The intention of this article is to show the potential help obtainable in process design by using the computational tools available to chemical engineers today and
*Correspondence to : Juan M. Montelongo-Luna, Department of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering, Schulich School of Engineering, University of Calgary, 2500 University Dr. NW, Calgary AB, T2N 1N4, Canada. E-mail: jmontelo@ucalgary.ca
2007 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
applying the concept of exergy as a means of nding the most inefcient parts of a given process or plant. A comparison between a simple exergy analysis and an energy balance on an ideal process will show the benets of the proposed tool.
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The dead state is that of unrestricted equilibrium conditions of mechanical, thermal and chemical equilibrium between the system and the environment. It is worth noting that the processes this denition refers to are reversible processes. There are two main ways to calculate exergy. One divides exergy into physical and chemical components (Kotas, 1980) and the other considers exergy as being composed of three components, namely, physical exergy, chemical exergy and exergy change of mixing (Hinderink et al ., 1996). For the present work, the latter approach was used because it presents more advantages for composition-changing processes. The main advantage of considering exergy as being composed of three components is that the exergy components are calculated independently of each other and the calculation appears to be clear with no hidden components in each step. So the exergy, B , is calculated via Eqn (1). B = Bchem + Bphys +
mix B
xi Mil + yi Miv
i =1
Mv
(4)
Thus, enthalpy and entropy changes can be calculated to obtain the exergy change of mixing, which is the contribution due to the pure components being in a mixture, at actual conditions. This is calculated by applying Eqn (5).
mix B
mix H
T0
mix S
(5)
(1)
Exergy will be calculated then as the sum of three components; chemical and physical exergy and the exergy change of mixing. Each of these components is described in the following section.
The necessary calculations can be easily done in a chemical process simulator, which inherently performs thermodynamic calculations in a very efcient manner. The design of the exergy calculator and the implementation of these equations are presented in the next section.
Bchem = L0
+ V0
i =1
0v y0,i Bchem ,i
(2)
The physical exergy term requires a ash calculation at both the reference (T0 , P0 ) and the actual conditions (T , P ). A mixing term is avoided by considering only the contribution of the pure components to the enthalpy and entropy of the mixture at reference (T0 , P0 ) and actual (T , P ) conditions. The physical exergy component is then given by Eqn (3). L Bphys = V
n i =1 n
As previously mentioned, exergy can be easily calculated with the help of a process simulator. For the present work Sim42 (Cota Elizondo, 2003) was used as the chemical process simulator. Since Sim42 is an opensource program, this permitted the seamless inclusion of the exergy calculations into the source code of the simulator without having the inconvenience of linking any external computer routines to the simulator or writing a macro-like routine inside the simulators own programming or scripting language. It is also freely available to any interested user or developer. As mentioned before, the approach by Hinderink et al . (1996) where the calculation of the exergy is divided into three components was implemented in the open-source chemical process simulator Sim42 to create the exergy calculator. The exergy calculator performs the following steps in order to get the exergy of a material stream (Montelongo-Luna et al ., 2005): 1. Identify the thermodynamic property package and the chemical species used in the simulation. 2. Identify which elements within the simulation represent material streams. 3. Calculate thermodynamic properties for each of the chemical species at standard conditions. 4. Get thermodynamic properties for each of the chemical species at actual conditions.
Asia-Pac. J. Chem. Eng. 2007; 2: 431437 DOI: 10.1002/apj
xi Hil
T0
n i =1 n
xi Sil
i =1
yi Hiv T0
i =1
yi Si
+ v
T ,P (3)
T0 ,P0
For the determination of the exergy change of mixing, the concept of property change of mixing is used; this
2007 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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5. Calculate thermodynamic properties for the material streams at reference conditions. 6. Get thermodynamic properties for the material streams at actual conditions. 7. Calculate the chemical exergy component. 8. Calculate the physical exergy and the exergy change of mixing components. 9. Calculate the exergy for the material stream. 10. Display the results for the total exergy for each stream. In Sim42 it is not necessary to have Material Streams; instead, the information is propagated through
Ports. The Material Port represents streams of matter and it carries all the information regarding physical, chemical and thermodynamic properties (Cota Elizondo, 2003). The implementation for the exergy calculation was set up in the call to the thermodynamic property package. The exergy property was added to the Sim42 list of variables and then calculated in the thermodynamic provider interface. This allowed inserting the exergy into the material ports and propagating the values throughout the simulation. Figure 1 depicts a simplication of the algorithm as implemented for the exergy calculator.
Start
Process Simulator Engine Define T0, P0 Calculate Thermodynamic properties for chemical species at Standard Conditions
Calculate Physical Exergy Get Thermodynamic properties for Material Streams at Actual Conditions
Display results
End
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It is worth noting that at actual conditions the exergy calculator just needs to take values for the thermodynamic properties already calculated by the natural ow of the process simulator. However, the values for the standard conditions need to be calculated because they are not included in the regular process simulator calculation steps. Note also that the exergy calculator does not take into account energy streams modeled as pure or direct energy. In order to take the exergy of the utilities into account, it is necessary to model them as the actual material streams they represent (e.g. high pressure steam, low pressure steam, hot oil, etc.).
For the purposes of this work a rather idealised feed stream and process conditions were assumed. This however, as will become apparent, does not limit the capabilities of the exergy analysis. Table 1 shows the composition of the inlet gas. The gas is fed at 10 C and 4125 kPa. The rst, second and third heaters increase the stream temperature to 68, 124 and 134 C, respectively. Other specications for the simulation are as follows: Feed ow: 49.7 kmol Stage 1 pressure drop: 0 kPa Stage 2 pressure drop: 2075 kPa Stage 3 pressure drop, 1700 kPa Gas Product pressure: 4125 kPa Comp 1 adiabatic efciency: 75% Comp 2 adiabatic efciency: 75%
The PengRobinson equation of state was used in the simulation as the thermodynamic property package. Note also that the simulation case study was set up with no heat losses from any equipment to the environment.
Table 1. Inlet gas composition.
Compound Methane Ethane Propane i -Butane n -Butane i -Pentane n -Pentane n -Hexane n -Heptane n -Octane n -Nonane
Mole fraction 0.316 0.158 0.105 0.105 0.105 0.053 0.053 0.027 0.026 0.026 0.026
Gas Product
Feed
Hot Feed 1
Comp 1 Out
Stage 1
Steam 2 Stage 1 Liq
Heater 1
Stage 2 Vap
Gas Mixer
Comp 2 Out
Hot Feed 2
Comp 1 Stage 2
Steam 3 Stage 2 Liq Stage 3 Vap
Heater 2
Hot Feed 3
Comp 2 Stage 3
Heater 3
Liquid Product
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Results
For this work the reference state as given by Van Gool (1998) was used. The reference pressure is 100 kPa and the reference temperature is 25 C. On the basis of the parameters described in the previous section the exergy tool was run on the case study simulation to obtain the exergy numerical values. Table 2 summarises the exergy ows of the material streams in the process. Table 3 shows the energy supplied for each of the heaters and compressors. For analysis purposes these energy feeds are treated as exergy delivered to each of the equipment (i.e. it is assumed to be electricity). Table 4 summarises the results by presenting the exergy ows in and out the process equipment. Equation (6) denes the simple exergetic efciency used in Table 4. Bout (6) = Bin The overall exergetic efciency for the process considering the exergy ows for inlet and outlets is 0.992. Analogously, Table 5 presents the energy (enthalpy) ows of each process stream and Table 6 shows the energy ows in and out of each unit operation. This is the information needed to carry out an energy balance.
Table 2. Material streams exergy.
Equipment Heater 1 Stage 1 Heater 2 Stage 2 Comp 1 Heater 3 Stage 3 Comp 2 Gas mixer
Exergy in (kW) 29 998 29 886 21 627 21 556 8105 13 487 13 463 7198 23 643
Exergy out (kW) 29 886 29 885 21 556 21 552 8103 13 463 13 456 7194 23 636
Exergetic efciency 0.996 0.999 0.997 0.999 0.999 0.998 0.999 0.999 0.999
Stream Feed Hot feed 1 Stage 1 Liq Stage 1 Vap Hot feed 2 Stage 2 Liq Stage 2 Vap Hot feed 3 Liquid product Stage 3 Vap Comp 1 out Comp 2 out Gas product
Enthalpy (kJ/kmole) 128 443 119 891 145 093 87 858 133 768 162 832 104 326 154 758 204 168 126 998 101 929 118 355 98 330
Energy ow (kW) 1773 1655 1121 534 1033 633 400 602 286 316 391 295 1220
Stream Feed Hot feed 1 Stage 1 Liq Stage 1 Vap Hot feed 2 Stage 2 Liq Stage 2 Vap Hot feed 3 Liquid product Stage 3 Vap Comp 1 out Comp 2 out Gas product
Exergy (kJ/kmole) 2 164 629 2 165 016 2 788 008 1 373 173 2 790 204 3 461 023 2 109 329 3 462 995 4 490 758 2 882 634 2 111 298 2 889 874 1 905 276
Exergy ow (kW) 29 880 29 886 21 539 8346 21 556 13 456 8096 13 463 6280 7176 8103 7194 23 636
Equipment Heater 1 Stage 1 Heater 2 Stage 2 Comp 1 Heater 3 Stage 3 Comp 2 Gas mixer
Energy in (kW) 1655 1655 1033 1033 391 602 602 295 1220
Energy out (kW) 1655 1655 1033 1033 391 602 602 295 1220
Energy efciency 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Equation (7) denes the simple energetic efciency used in Table 6. out H (7) = in H The overall energetic efciency for the process considering the energy ows for inlet and outlets is 1.0 (which was expected from an idealised simulation with no heat losses).
Asia-Pac. J. Chem. Eng. 2007; 2: 431437 DOI: 10.1002/apj
2007 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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DISCUSSION
The results from Tables 2 and 3 can be used to carry out a simple overall exergy analysis, which has shown that the overall exergetic efciency of the process is just above 99%. One could argue that this number might be due to round-off errors or numerical instability in the properties calculations; however, if this were true for a given thermodynamic property package, the energy balance would also be affected in the same manner. From Table 6 it is clear that the energy balance results in 100% efciency. That means that even an idealised model of a process accounts for some (not all, however) of the exergy destruction in the process. By examining each of the unit operations in the plant it can be seen how much exergy is lost in every step of the process. It is interesting to note the exergy losses in the heat exchangers; even though they are increasing the temperature of the stream, and therefore increasing its exergy, most of the energy supplied cannot be recovered in the form of work (i.e. entropy is created). This indicates a good point to focus a more thorough design in terms of temperature differences and heating media. Another interesting result is the loss of exergy in the mixer; this loss is mainly due to the change of composition from the inlet streams to the outlet gas (i.e. chemical exergy and exergy change of mixing). This problem can be looked at by designing the process in order to blend more composition-similar streams or not blending at all. These results conrm that the plant is governed by irreversible processes and that the capacity of producing work is decreased.
Acknowledgments
This work was in part supported by the COURSE program from the Alberta Energy Research Institute under the agreement No. 1512.
SYMBOLS USED
B H H L M n P S T V x y Exergy Molar enthalpy Energy ow Liquid fraction Arbitrary thermodynamic property Total number of compounds Pressure Molar entropy Temperature Vapour fraction Liquid molar fraction Vapour molar fraction
GREEK
Difference or change Efciency
SUBSCRIPTS
0 i chem phys mix in out Standard conditions Compounds Chemical Physical Mixture Inlet Outlet
CONCLUSIONS
It has been shown that the exergy can be easily calculated with the aid of a chemical process simulator (Sim42). The results provided from this simple exergy analysis show the areas where the exergy consumption is the greatest, thereby allowing for improvement. There is potential for applying exergy calculations into the early stages of process design to take into account inefciencies so that design engineers can take actions to correct them. It is also evident that this approach can be used in retrotting industrial processes as it can give a better perspective on where the energy is being wasted. Embedding the exergy calculation into a process simulator created a tool that can be extensively used in the early stages of process design to rapidly evaluate different scenarios to nd the most energy efcient ones. An idealised process simulation showed that exergy losses are always present and should be taken into account.
2007 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
SUPERSCRIPTS
0 l v Standard conditions Liquid phase Vapour phase
REFERENCES
Cota Elizondo RC. Development of an Open Source Chemical Process Simulator. M.Sc. Thesis. 2003; University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. Hinderink AP, Kerkhof FJPM, Lie ABK, De Swaan Arons J, Van Der Kooi HJ. Exergy analysis with a owsheeting simulatorI. Theory; calculating exergies of material streams. Chem. Eng. Sci. 1996; 51: 46934700. Kotas TJ. Exergy concepts for thermal plant. Int. J. Heat Fluid Flow 1980; 2: 105114. Asia-Pac. J. Chem. Eng. 2007; 2: 431437 DOI: 10.1002/apj
Asia-Pacic Journal of Chemical Engineering Kotas TJ. The Exergy Method of Thermal Plant Analysis. Butterworths: London, 1985. Manning FS, Thompson RE. Oileld Processing of Petroleum, Volume One: Natural Gas . PennWell Books: Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1991. Montelongo-Luna JM, Young BR, Svrcek WY. An Open Source Exergy Calculator Tool. In 2nd CDEN International Conference
ENERGY CALCULATOR TOOL FOR PROCESS SIMULATION on Design Education, Innovation, and Practice . 2005; Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada. Peters MS, Timmerhaus KD. Plant Design and Economics for Chemical Engineers, 4th edn. McGraw-Hill: New York, 1991. Van Gool W. Thermodynamics of chemical references for exergy analysis. Energy Convers. Manag. 1998; 39: 17191728.
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2007 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.