Energy Recovery of Ethylene Dichloride (EDC) Production by Pinch Analysis (Abu-Kamash EDC plant)

Abstract

The pinch analysis has emerged as a powerful tool for the integrated design of process heat networks which include heat exchangers, distillation columns, furnaces, etc.., in order to reduce energy consumption of such units .The key strategy of this methodology is to set energy targets prior to design based on basic thermodynamic principles. The subject of this research in to apply this analysis to one of the chemical plants in Libya, namely, the ethylene di chloride plant (EDC) at Abu Kamash chemical complex. The objectives are to assess energy utilization of such big energy – consuming plants and to explore the potential of energy saving based on the results of applying this analysis. Actual data is collected from the plant and application of the procedure of the pinch analysis to this case study, where a minimum temperature difference approach in the EDC plant heat exchangers design of 10 ℃ (ΔT min =10 ℃) is used, gave the following results. Since high pressure saturated steam are the source of energy consumed in the plant as hot utility, the result of pinch analysis showed that a minimum energy requirement to operate the plant is 96.82 Mcal/hr. The actual energy consumption of the plant is 279.6 Mcal/hr, and then amounts to 65% energy saving.