Low temperature separator (LST) effect in C2+ recovery plant profit

in this paper, ethane recovery in a conventional turbo-expander process was simulated and optimized. For this purpose, Low Temperature Separator (LST) is considered and its effect performance of unit profit is calculated. In all cases, the feed entrance condition was 49◦C and 73.43 bars. Due to optimization of ethane recovery unit, an intermediate reflux from the cold separator was send to the column. Objective function was determined by balancing between four parameters: ethane sales, fixed investment costs, NGL sales, utility costs. Optimum ethane recovery is obtained along with the system profit. It was observed that objective function was maximum in two cases: split ratio of 0.34 in the splitter

Keywords:

ethane recovery , profit , low temperature separator (LST) , simulation , optimization