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Journal of Cleaner Production
Abstract Volume 113, 1 February 2016, Pages 411-425

Introduction

Section snippets
Investigation of novel integrated air separation
References (42)
processes, cold energy recovery of liquefied
Cited by (76)
natural gas and carbon dioxide power cycle
Recommended articles (6)
Mehdi Mehrpooya a b , Masoud Kalhorzadeh c, Mahmood Chahartaghi c

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Abstract

Cryogenic air separation unit (ASU) consume high amount of energy to produce oxygen
and nitrogen with high purity. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) regasification process provides
low temperature cryogenic refrigeration source which can be used in ASU with high
efficiency. In this study two cryogenic air separation processes for production of high
purity nitrogen and oxygen with low energy consumption are proposed and analyzed.
The first proposed process is a two-column configuration which power consumption per
oxygen production is 16.6% lower, compared to a convectional cryogenic air separation
process. In the second one, liquefied natural gas cold energy is used for pre-cooling the
feed air. This greatly reduces the energy consumption of the compressors located before
the columns by more than 55.6% compared to the first proposed process, without much
change in purity of the products. In the second process, energy saving in the air
separation unit and power generation cycle is 2715 kW and 17,810 kW respectively. Both
processes use an integrated heat exchanger which is both condenser of the high pressure
column and reboiler of the low pressure column. With this integration latent heat of the
pure nitrogen and pure oxygen can be exchanged in a two-column process configuration.
The second proposed process is a hybrid with a carbon dioxide trans-critical power cycle.
The liquefied natural gas cold energy is used for cooling the power cycle condenser.
Energy and exergy analysis are carried out on the air separation unit and power
generation cycle.

Introduction

In the liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals, LNG should be vaporized and brought to a
desired temperature and pressure before entering the pipeline network. In the old
terminals, cold energy of LNG was released and wasted into the water or air without any
recovering. Open rack vaporizers (ORV) and submerged combustion vaporizers (SCV) are
some of these methods that waste the energy of LNG (Tsatsaronis and Morosuk, 2010,
Mak and Ana, 2008). Using cold energy of the LNG during regasification has been studied
for different industrial applications. Desalination of the seawater using LNG cold energy
can reduces the energy consumption significantly (Xia et al., 2014, Wang and Chung,
2012). LNG cold energy can be used for various applications such as deep freezing agro
food industry facilities or for space conditioning in the commercial and residential sector
and supermarkets and hypermarkets (La Rocca, 2010, La Rocca, 2011). LNG typically
contains some hydrocarbons heavier than the methane which can be separated by
different processes such as using distillation columns (Mak and Ana, 2011, Winningham
and Anderson, 2007). One of the most efficient and reasonable ways to exploit the LNG
cold energy is supplying a portion of the required refrigeration in the air separation units.
Operating temperature of the air separation unit (ASU) (−173 °C, −193 °C) (Cornelissen,
1997) is lower than the LNG (−162 °C) hence LNG cold energy can be used with high cold
recovery efficiency compared to other methods. Two column cryogenic distillation, is one
of the conventional methods for air separation. In this design we can save a lot of energy
by combining high pressure column condenser and low pressure column re-boiler (Zhu
et al., 2009). There is an alternative procedure which uses three distillation columns
(Shah, 2003). Kansha et al. (2011) suggested a process based on the self-heat recuperation
technology for cryogenic ASU. Energy consumption decreases more than 36% compared
to the conventional cryogenic air separation process, when producing 99.99 mol% oxygen
from the air. In van der Ham and Kjelstrup (2010) simple and rational exergy efficiency
and exergy destruction for both two and three column designs are calculated that three-
column design destroy 12% less exergy than the two-column design. A detailed exergy
analysis of an ASU is investigated (Cornelissen, 1997). Some processes which cryogenic
ASU is a part of the integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) are discussed and
analyzed (van der Ham, 2012, Jones et al., 2011). Increasing purity of oxygen to 97%
increases energy consumption linearly, but from 97% to 100% the energy consumption
increases exponentially (Li et al., 2013). Using LNG cold energy in ASU is cost-effective
and environmentally friendly because it decreases the required refrigeration in the
process (Nakaiwa et al., 1996, Xiong and Hua, 2014). LNG cold energy utilization in ASU
decreases the required power up to 50% (Nakaiwa et al., 1996). A novel one column
cryogenic air separation process with LNG cold energy utilization that produces liquid
nitrogen and oxygen is proposed (Mehrpooya et al., 2015). Energy consumption with LNG
cold recovery is about 38.5% lower compared to a convectional cryogenic air separation
process. Several methods which uses LNG cold energy as a cooling source in power
generation systems have been proposed. A trans-critical CO2 power cycle driven by solar
energy, using LNG cold energy as its heat sink is investigated (Song et al., 2012). A
combined power cycle and LNG cold energy utilization is suggested (Kim and Ro, 2000).
Reducing the air temperature by LNG, depends on the temperature and humidity of the
air. By using LNG cold energy, the produced power increases 8% for dry air and 6% for
humid air (Relative humidity = 60%). Stirling cycle is selected for utilizing the LNG cold
energy (Dong et al., 2013). Advanced exergetic analysis is done for a power generation
cycle with LNG cold energy recovery (Tsatsaronis and Morosuk, 2010, Morosuk and
Tsatsaronis, 2011). Carbon dioxide as a working fluid is environmentally friendly and size
of the system is smaller compared to the Organic Rankine Cycles (ORC), also trans-critical
CO2 cycle produces more power (Chen et al., 2006). Supercritical CO2 power cycle has
higher yield compared to the conventional Rankine cycles (Liu et al., 2014). According to
the properties of the CO2 in the cycles that use LNG as a cold source, better performance
compared to the other working fluids is achievable (Romero Gómez et al., 2014). CO2 is
used as working fluid in a power generation cycle. In this cycle seawater as a part of the
required heat duty is used to increase the efficiency of cycle (Angelino and Invernizzi,
2009). Through regasification process, LNG in about −162 °C is available as a low
temperature refrigeration source which can be used in various cryogenic processes. LNG
cold energy recovery in air separation processes has not been investigated
comprehensively. Also there are different ASU process configurations and each of them
have specific characteristics. Improving LNG cold energy recovery in a new and efficient
air separation process is the main objective of this study. In this paper, two cryogenic
ASU are proposed and analyzed. Supercritical CO2 power generation cycle is used in the
second process. Both proposed processes produce high purity oxygen and nitrogen with
low energy consumption. The second process is a hybrid of cryogenic ASU and
supercritical CO2 power generation cycle. Power cycle which uses a part of LNG cold
energy can supply the required power in the ASU. Energy and exergy analysis are done
for both processes. Effect of the sensitive parameters on the processes performance is
discussed.

Section snippets

Conceptual design of the air separation unit

In the air separation processes, pure oxygen is the main product which can be extracted
in gas phase, liquid phase or both of them. Nitrogen and Argon also can be gained as
valuable byproducts of the process. Three common methods for separation of the air
components are cryogenic distillation, pressure swing absorption and membrane
separation. Cryogenic distillation method is used when extraction of the high purity
products in a large volume is desired (Smith and Klosek, 2001). In this method,…

Thermodynamic calculations

In simulation of the processes heat loss is ignored and Aspen-HYSYS software is use for
simulation (Klemes, 2013). Comprehensive thermodynamic data bank is one of the
advantages of Aspen-HYSYS software. Peng–Robinson equation of state (Peng and
Robinson, 1976) is selected for calculation of thermodynamic properties of LNG (Dong
et al., 2013) and cryogenic ASU (Dong et al., 2013, Fu and Gundersen, 2013). Composition
of the feed air to the process is nitrogen = 78%, oxygen = 21% and argon = 1%.…

Results and discussion

In this section sensitivity of the process to the effective parameters which can affect its
performance in different parts (Cryogenic ASU, LNG regasification and power generation
system) is discussed and analyzed.…

Conclusions

Two ASU processes for production of high purity oxygen and nitrogen are suggested and
simulations are conducted with the aim of reducing the energy consumption.
Thermodynamic analysis of the ASU processes shows that compressor efficiency has a
great impact on the processes performance. Another parameter that can change the
purity of the ASU products is feed composition. In the both processes all of the products
(O2, N2 and LP-N2) have high purity and also the produced oxygen in the gas and…

Nomenclature

D
duty of heat exchangers (kW)

E
exergy (kW)

F
molar flow rate

G
Gibbs free energy (kJ/kg mole)

h
enthalpy (kJ/kg)

I
exergy loss rate (kW)

M
mass flow rate (kg/s)

P
pressure (kPa)

Q
heat (kW)

T
temperature (°C)

W
work (kW)

WCPi
total work for first and second processes compressors (kW)

specific volume (m3/kg)

Greek letters

efficiency

specific energy

e
specific exergy rate

Abbreviations

AC
air cooler

ASU
air separation unit

C
compressor

C-W
cooling water

E
heat exchanger

Exp
expander

Imp
improvement

LMTD
log mean temperature difference

LP-N2
low purity nitrogen (g)

References (42)

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R. Boehme et al.
Simulation of multistream plate-fin heat exchangers of an air separation unit
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Y. Chen et al.
A comparative study of the carbon dioxide transcritical power cycle compared
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recovery
Appl. Therm. Eng. (2006)

C. Dispenza et al.
Exergy recovery during LNG regasification: electric energy production – part
one
Appl. Therm. Eng. (2009)

H. Dong et al.
Using cryogenic exergy of liquefied natural gas for electricity production with
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C. Fu et al.
Recuperative vapor recompression heat pumps in cryogenic air separation
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J. Nat. Gas Sci. Eng. (2012)

B. Ghorbani et al.
Exergy and exergoeconomic evaluation of gas separation process
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D. Jones et al.
Optimal design and integration of an air separation unit (ASU) for an integrated
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View more references

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