High water cut in stabilizer Tower

Presence in high water in distillation tower causing

- excessive high pressure in top tower that’s because high actual volume of water compared to
HC actual volume
- poor separation efficiency ( flooding , ) (e.g. in hydrocarbon-separating columns, whereby
water become trapped on trays, with the hydrocarbon floating above, reducing vapour-liquid
contact),
- corrosion.

Study the following:

 the impact of feed water rate in the raw condensate stream on the reboiler and condenser
duties.
 water removal by water draw pan and the optimum location of water-draw tray in the column

Case Study :

 Tower trays 25
 Atoll Stablizer
Feed water Draw tray Reb duty Top tower Flashed gas
from top tempr
Bpd No KW C mmscfd
0
100 12 4924
200
300
400
500

Methodlgy :

- Using try and error to choise draw-off water try then column run then select the best location
which make the max water recovery
- Or
- Run steady state coloumn without drawoff tray and track water composition on the trays then
select the try where water composition is high like below
 -

Conclusions:

1. Commercial simulators using special convergence algorithms and thermodynamic packages are able
to predict the presence of two liquid phases within distillation columns. The calculations are difficult to
converge and it is difficult to predict the exact location of the liquid water phase. Therefore, it is
advisable to install liquid water draw trays in two or three locations around the tray predicted by the
simulator.
2. Install properly sized free water knockout (three phase separator) separator to minimize the feed
water rate to the stabilizer column. This assures easier/less troublesome operation with lower utility
(reboiler and condenser duties) cost.
3. Side water-draw removes water/aqueous phase effectively and reduces the reboiler duty and
condenser duty.
4. The optimum location of the side-draw depends on the feed water rate.
5 determined the optimum location of water-draw try by maximizing liquid water removal and
minimizing the reboiler and condenser duties.
6. The side water-draw has no impact on the heat exchanger upstream of the stabilizer column.
7. As shown In Table 3, the top most condenser duties for the three cases are 14.67, 9.00 and 8.49
MMBtu/hr (4.3,
2.64, and 2.49 MW), respectively. Since fundamentally at a fixed overhead product rate, condenser
pressure and
temperature the water vapor content is fixed. Thus a greater total overhead flow is needed to transport
water as
vapor out of the column to be condensed into the reflux drum and removed. Greater total overhead
means larger
condenser duty. It also requires a commensurately larger reboiler duty. With a lot of water entering the
tower the
condenser and reboiler might not be big enough to do the job
1. Water partial pressure profile in the column is an excellent tool for determining the optimum location of water-draw.
2. Column temperature profile can also provide guidance for the optimum location of water-draw tray