An innovative design for energy saving by self-heat recuperation in crude oil distillation

Many heat integration techniques for process energy saving have been applied to oil refinery plants since the 1970s, however, refinery plants still consume large amounts of energy compared to the required values based on an exergy analysis for separation processes. An innovative process design technology, termed self-heat recuperation technology, for saving energy was developed. Using this technology, whole-process heat is recirculated within the process without heat addition, leading to large energy savings. Crude oil distillation was analyzed and a crude oil distillation model for an energy saving design was developed. The feasibility of application of self-heat recuperation technology was studied and an innovative design for energy saving by self-heat recuperation in crude oil distillation was proposed. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the 2012 AIChE Spring Meeting and 8th Global Congress on Process Safety (Houston, TX 4/1-5/2012).