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Recuperative vapor recompression heat pumps in cryogenic air separation processes

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  • Fu, Chao
  • Gundersen, Truls

Abstract

Vapor recompression heat pumps are used in distillation processes to reduce energy consumption. For sub-ambient distillation, one of the largest difficulties is to produce liquid reflux since the condensation of highly volatile components requires expensive refrigeration energy. Thermally coupled distillation columns have been commonly applied to produce reflux in cryogenic air separation processes. In order to condense the nitrogen vapor for reflux by the oxygen liquid, all the air feed has been compressed to a pressure considerably above ambient pressure. In cases where the oxygen product does not have to be at elevated pressure, this causes unnecessary compression of the oxygen in the air feed. One such large scale application is oxy-combustion in coal based power plants. A scheme of recuperative vapor recompression heat pumps is developed to substitute the thermally coupled distillation columns, and this scheme is applied in cryogenic air separation processes in this paper. A portion of the vapor nitrogen is compressed and condensed for reflux, thus the mass flow through the compression stages is reduced. The power consumption has been significantly reduced compared to conventional double-column distillation cycles, and further reduced when the principle of distributed reboiling is applied to reduce irreversibilities in distillation columns.

Suggested Citation

  • Fu, Chao & Gundersen, Truls, 2013. "Recuperative vapor recompression heat pumps in cryogenic air separation processes," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 708-718.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:59:y:2013:i:c:p:708-718
    DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2013.06.055
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    1. Fu, Chao & Gundersen, Truls, 2012. "Using exergy analysis to reduce power consumption in air separation units for oxy-combustion processes," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 60-68.
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    Cited by:

    1. Kiss, Anton A. & Smith, Robin, 2020. "Rethinking energy use in distillation processes for a more sustainable chemical industry," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    2. Ebrahimi, Armin & Meratizaman, Mousa & Akbarpour Reyhani, Hamed & Pourali, Omid & Amidpour, Majid, 2015. "Energetic, exergetic and economic assessment of oxygen production from two columns cryogenic air separation unit," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 90(P2), pages 1298-1316.
    3. Fu, Qian & Kansha, Yasuki & Song, Chunfeng & Liu, Yuping & Ishizuka, Masanori & Tsutsumi, Atsushi, 2016. "A cryogenic air separation process based on self-heat recuperation for oxy-combustion plants," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 1114-1121.
    4. Cui, Chengtian & Qi, Meng & Zhang, Xiaodong & Sun, Jinsheng & Li, Qing & Kiss, Anton A. & Wong, David Shan-Hill & Masuku, Cornelius M. & Lee, Moonyong, 2024. "Electrification of distillation for decarbonization: An overview and perspective," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    5. Yu, Haoshui & Gundersen, Truls & Feng, Xiao, 2018. "Process integration of organic Rankine cycle (ORC) and heat pump for low temperature waste heat recovery," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 330-340.
    6. Chen, Shiqing & Dong, Xuezhi & Xu, Jian & Zhang, Hualiang & Gao, Qing & Tan, Chunqing, 2019. "Thermodynamic evaluation of the novel distillation column of the air separation unit with integration of liquefied natural gas (LNG) regasification," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 341-359.
    7. Mehrpooya, Mehdi & Moftakhari Sharifzadeh, Mohammad Mehdi & Rosen, Marc A., 2015. "Optimum design and exergy analysis of a novel cryogenic air separation process with LNG (liquefied natural gas) cold energy utilization," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 90(P2), pages 2047-2069.
    8. McLarty, Dustin & Brouwer, Jack, 2014. "Poly-generating closed cathode fuel cell with carbon capture," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 108-116.
    9. Kazemi, Abolghasem & Mehrabani-Zeinabad, Arjomand & Beheshti, Masoud, 2018. "Recently developed heat pump assisted distillation configurations: A comparative study," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 211(C), pages 1261-1281.
    10. Klemeš, Jiří Jaromír & Varbanov, Petar Sabev & Walmsley, Timothy G. & Jia, Xuexiu, 2018. "New directions in the implementation of Pinch Methodology (PM)," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 439-468.
    11. Jin, Bo & Zhao, Haibo & Zheng, Chuguang & Liang, Zhiwu, 2018. "Control optimization to achieve energy-efficient operation of the air separation unit in oxy-fuel combustion power plants," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 152(C), pages 313-321.
    12. Fu, Chao & Gundersen, Truls, 2016. "Correct integration of compressors and expanders in above ambient heat exchanger networks," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 116(P2), pages 1282-1293.

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