Advanced and high performances heat exchangers for the gas processing industries

Presented at February 2003 February Conference, in Paris by B. Thonon, CEA-Grenoble and B. Neeras, Statoil, Trondheim
This paper presents the results of two projects carried at the European level, with the support of the EC. The project is dedicated to the development of advanced heat exchanger for the gas processing industries. Enhancement technologies have been developed and tested for various applications using pure and mixture hydrocarbons for both boiling and condensation applications. The tests have been performed at the lab scale and also on a small pilot unit. Based on these results, in 2000 a first demonstration project for a boiler in a polypropylene plant has been realised, and it has been shown that the minimum temperature approach can be reduced to less that 1°C thus leading to energy savings. Afterward, the work has been extended to gas liquefaction processes and a potential increase of more than 50% and up to 100% can be obtained for condensation/evaporation duties such as encountered in chilling train for LNG processes. A technical and economic evaluation has been realised and it shows that both material and energy could be saved using high performances heat exchangers.