Optimal process selection for natural gas liquids recovery: Energy, exergy, economic, and environmental perspectives

Muhammad Islam, Saad A. Al-Sobhi, Ahmad Naquash, Muhammad Abdul Qyyum and Moonyong Lee

Energy, 2024, vol. 289, issue C

Abstract: In contrast with extant studies on industrial natural gas liquids (NGL) recovery processes, this study focuses on the most significant configurations, including the industry-standard single-stage (ISS) process, gas subcooled (GSP) process, cold residue gas-recycle (CRR) process, recycle split-vapor (RSV) process, enhanced NGL recovery process (IPSI-1), and internal refrigeration for enhanced NGL recovery process (IPSI-2). Furthermore, this study in-depth analyses the energy, exergy, economics, and environmental factors to determine the optimal configuration based on specific scenarios and priorities. ASPEN HYSYS® V11 is used to simulate six NGL process configurations, each with a processing capacity of 5000 kmol/h. The study identifies critical design variables concerning energy consumption. The energy analysis reveals that the RSV process exhibits the highest energy consumption, totaling 38.00 MW. Additionally, the RSV configuration demonstrates the highest values for exergy destruction, capital cost, CO2 emissions, and purity compared to the other configurations. In contrast, the IPSI-1 process exhibits significantly higher energy efficiency than the RSV process, with 46 % lower energy consumption and the lowest specific CO2 emissions (0.048 kg CO2/kg feed). However, the analytical values for the lowest or middle rankings differ depending on the perspectives considered. Thus, this study provides valuable methods for selecting a conventional technology based on investment, input resources, and sustainable output requirements.

Keywords: NGL recovery; NGL energy analysis; Exergy destruction; NGL environment analysis; NGL economic analysis; NGL process selection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544223031511
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:289:y:2024:i:c:s0360544223031511

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2023.129757

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().