Optimization of depropanizer column quality product by changing controller set points of reflux flow and reboiler heat rate

Abstract

Companies in various fields of industry are competing to produce optimum products quality, including oil and gas industry. Consumer's demand for product quality also varies depend on the consumer's plant reqirements. Explored natural gas will be fractionated to serve a wide range of refined gas products. Distillation column is the most commonly used unit operation to separate in oil and gas industry. Depropanizer column is one of the distillation column that produces distilate product that rich in propane. In this study, the optimization is performed and focused to optimize the quality product of depropanizer column. Depropanizer column system is modelled based on the plant design data in HYSYS and FOPDT to simulate and determine the plant gains. The plant gains are utilized to predict the optimized the reflux mass flow and reboiler heat rate by using ES algorithm. The optimizaton results will be reperent as set point of mass flow reflux and reboiler heat rate. In this study, in order to obtain 0.9552 and 0.055 propane fraction in top product and bottom product, the set point of reflux mass flow and reboiler heat rate have to be 25782,17 kg/h and 1097572514 kJ/h.