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High TDS Wastewaters Desalination for Demine Water Production in Chemical

Process Industry.

Conference Paper · October 2014

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Mahdi Gougol
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 High TDS Wastewaters Desalination for Demine Water Production in Chemical
Process Industry

M. Gougol

Research Institute of Petroleum Industry (RIPI), Tehran, Iran.

(E-mail: gougolm@ripi.ir)

Abstract
The reject of reverse osmosis or evaporator system with blow down of cooling tower and boiler are one of
the main sources of high solid wastewater in oil and gas refineries as well as petrochemical complex. For
modifying the existing systems for the determination of the best optimal option among all alternatives
considered, expensive laboratory or pilot plant methods are no longer used as the only solution. Thus, the
implementation of such plans with mathematical modeling and optimization is possible. In this study, the
mixed integer linear programming was used alongside operational experience; the superstructure plan was
first created for a network of cooling towers and reverse osmosis. In the next step, the most optimum
model was introduced for the reduction of raw water consumption and produce demine (DM) water was
required by the factory. Optimum Scenario results include the production of 200m3/h DM water. These
Economic criteria are used in this project to determine the functions of NPV, IRR and Payback.
Keywords: Desalination, Reuse, Economy, High TDS, Case Study.

Introduction
The main purpose of chemical process industry (CPI) for high TDS wastewater desalination consisted of
water reuse, reduction or elimination of high TDS effluent also the decrease of evaporation pond area.
Another requirement of CPI is the production of DM water for the plant which has been considered as
one of the goals of this project.
Parameters such as efficiency and process operation, fixed and operational costs and the produced brine
effluent volume should be taken into account for the selection of an appropriate desalination process. Ion
exchange systems are the less expensive method for the remove of TDS less than 1000ppm, but the costs
of this method increases drastically with the increase in the concentration of solute.
The electrodialysis or electrodialysis reversal system is not in the appropriate range for our incoming and
outgoing amplitude, so the main competition is between reverse osmosis (RO) and evaporation systems.
Conventional evaporation systems such as multi effect distillation in form of mechanical vapor
recompression or thermal vapor compression are out due to higher brine effluent volume and lower
efficiency so the RO system is chosen. The RO package has an efficiency of 75 to 87.5 for the brackish
waters such as cooling tower blow down [1]. In this paper, retrofitting of Razi Petrochemical Complex
consists of 9 cooling towers and 2 RO package is considered.

Method
The final optimum structures are revealed after mathematical optimization based on Mixed Integer Linear
Programming (MILP). For solving the superstructure model and simulation of cooling towers and RO,
software with the title of CTOpt1.1 was designed and was used after identifying with the conditions of the
plant [2-5].

1
Result and Discussion
The cooling towers blow down of ammonium 1, 2, 3 and urea 1,2 along with RO reject of ammonium 3
and utility units are collected and is injected into the a new desalination system consisting of clarifiers,
sand filters and a RO system. The permeate stream of the new RO system is divided into two streams.
The first part is introduced into the ion exchange system for the production of 200 cubic meters of DM
water per hour. The remaining permeate is considered as the main makeup water for the cooling towers of
ammonium 2 and urea 2. After the injection of permeate from the RO system to the cooling towers of
ammonium 2 and urea 2. Afterwards, the concentration cycle is increased and less amount of blow down
(after reaching a steady state condition) is produced and less makeup water is required from Karun River.
Therefore, the second scenario indirectly results in a decrease in the water consumption from Karun
River. The profit from the production of 200 cubic meters of DM water per hour with a price of 1.6$ per
cubic meters is considered. The reduction of water consumption from Karun River is calculated with a
price of 1000 Rials per cubic meter. The fixed costs include the costs of repair and maintenance,
membranes replacement, changing elements of cartridge filters and the costs related to the staff.
The variable costs include the costs of the chemical consumption, electricity consumption and costs of
vapor usage if needed in winter. Therefore, the total obtained profit, operating cost and total investment
from optimum scenario is presented in table 1.
Table 1. Profit, operating cost and total investment of optimum scenario
Chemical consumption DM water Operation cost ($/yr) Total investment
River water reduction Profit
reduction Production ($)
(m3/hr) ($/yr)
(ton/month) (m3/hr)
7 340 200 1,589,000 3,352,103 7,700,000

For the investigation of economical parameters of this project, the financial function of the excel software
is used. The useful life time of this project in both scenarios is 12 years and the interest rate is 8%. The
calculations for the economical functions are presented in table 2.
Table2. Economic evaluation
Sum 12-Yr. Savings Payback NPV B/C Ratio IRR
($) (yr) ($) (%)
21,157,236 4.4 5,173,039 1.7 20

Conclusion
Change in the analysis of water sources and effluent along with limitations of RAZIP site, created
different optimum scenarios after mathematical optimization alongside the operational experience which
optimum scenarios was considered at the end. Based on table 1 and 2, optimum scenario produces 200
cubic meters per hour of required DM water with suitable economic parameter. On the other hand, it
further decreases the high TDS effluent and reduces the water consumption from Karun River.

References
1. Frank N. Kemmer, The NALCO water handbook, McGraw-Hill Inc., 2nd ed., 1988
2. Gololo K.V. and Majozi T., On synthesis and optimization of cooling water systems with multiple cooling towers, Ind.&
Eng.Chem.Res. Journal., 2010
3. Majozi T. and Moodley A., Simultaneous targeting and design for cooling water systems with multiple cooling water
supplies, Computer and Chemical. Eng.,Vol.32, 2008
4. Gougol M., Zaravi A. and Geramian M., Cooling tower blow down reuse in Razi petrochemical complex, NIOC-RIPI
Report, Jun., 2006
5. Gougol M., Dezvareh H. and Bataghva H., High TDS wastewater reuse and LP steam management in Shahid-hasheminejad
gas processing company, NIOC-RIPI Report, March 2007.

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