Simple

Dew Point Control – HYSYS v10

Steps to set up a simulation in HYSYS v10 to model a simple dew point control system consisting of:
 Gas chiller
 Flash separator
 Liquid stabilizer with gas recycle & compression
 Product gas compression
 Simple propane refrigeration loop

When the simulation is set up the overall PFD should look like the following figure.

Basis
A gas plant is processing 100 MMscfd (dry basis) to produce a spec pipeline gas as well as a pipeline
raw mix liquid product (Y Grade). The following are known conditions for the feedstock and
specifications for the products:
 The composition of the feed gas is shown in the following Component Mol%
table. N2 0.357
 The gas enters the plant at 400 psia & 120°F. CO2 0.194
 The gas is nearly saturated with water at the inlet C1 80.980
conditions, 48 lb water per MMscf dry gas. C2 13.238
 The produced pipeline gas should have a gross heating C3 3.438
value between 905 to 1050 Btu/scf1 & a hydrocarbon dew i‐C4 0.431
point no higher than 15°F. n‐C4 0.742
 The produced pipeline gas should be delivered to the i‐C5 0.199
pipeline at 1000 psia and no higher than 120°F. n‐C5 0.156
 The produced liquids shall be exported via pipeline & n‐C6 0.163
stabilized to have a TVP (true vapor pressure) @ 100°F no n‐C7 0.065
greater than 103 psia. n‐C8 0.026
n‐C9 0.010

1 If the gross heating value spec cannot be achieved set the chilled separator to the lowest reasonable

temperature when using a simple propane chilling loop, ‐30°F.

Rev 2.1 ‐ 1 ‐ January 9, 2018


 A propane refrigeration loop will be used to provide the chilling duty. The condenser will
operate at 120°F. The minimum approach temperature within the chiller will be 10°F.
 Air coolers will be used to cool gases & liquids to 120°F.


Create new simulation file
Start HYSYS. One way to do this from Windows 10 is to press Start, go down the alphabetical list to
Aspen HYSYS, then Aspen HYSYS V10. When the program opens choose the New button.


Define the Components & the Property Models
Specify components, fluid property packages, & crude oil assays

The first step is to add a set of pure chemical species to represent the gas & water phases. With
Component Lists highlighted click on the Add button. From the list of pure components pick: H2O,
Nitrogen, CO2, Methane, Ethane, Propane, i‐Butane, n‐Butane, i‐Pentane, n‐Pentane, n‐Hexane,
n‐Heptane, n‐Octane, & n‐Nonane.

Link

https://process-designand-simulation.blogspot.com/search/label/1%29%20Aspen%20Tech%20Course

Rev 2.1 ‐ 2 ‐ January 9, 2018



The next step is to pick a fluid property package. From the Fluid Packages screen click the Add
button. Choose the Peng‐Robinson option and make sure it is associated with Component List – 1.

It would be a good idea to save this file. Click the File tab & select Save As. Choose an appropriate
name & location.


Set up & Solve the Flowsheet
Gas Chilling & Separation
When you activate the Simulation & you’ll see a blank flowsheet. We will want to create a dry feed
stream, add the appropriate amount of water, & attach the “wet” feed to an LNG Exchanger. The
outlet will be attached to a flash separator.

Rev 2.1 ‐ 3 ‐ January 9, 2018



Ensure that the model
Palette is visible. If it is
not, press the View tab &
click Model Palette.


Place the following items on the flowsheet:
 A Material Stream, Dry Feed
 A Material Stream, Feed Water
 A Mixer, Combine
 An LNG Exchanger, Chiller
 A 3‐Phase Separator, DPC Separator.

Double‐click on the Dry Feed stream
to open up the entry forms for this
stream. Enter the temperature &
pressure. Enter the 100 MMscfd
flowrate in the Molar Flow box.

Note that depending upon your
default set of units the values entered
may change. The figure on the right
shows pressure in psig (even though
we’d really like psia) & molar flow in
lbmole/hr (though we’d really like
MMscf/day). We’ll look at how to
change these after setting up this
initial part of the process.

Now we need to specify the composition. Select Composition under Worksheet in the left‐hand
column. Click the Edit… button to bring up a form to enter the composition of this stream. Enter the
values from the table in the Basis section as Mole Fractions. Note that these add up to approximately
100, not 1. Select the Normalize button. Click OK. Now you should see that the form associated with
the stream is in green, meaning that all values for the stream have been calculated.

Rev 2.1 ‐ 4 ‐ January 9, 2018



We want to do the same thing for the
water portion of the feed represented
by the stream Feed Water. Double‐
click on the Feed Water stream to
open up the entry forms for this
stream. Enter 4,800 lb/day in the
Mass Flow box (to represent the 48
lb/MMscf water content). Enter the
pressure but do not enter the
temperature.

Note that for the set of units currently
in use HYSYS automatically replaces
the mass rate with the equivalent
amount in lb/hr.

Rev 2.1 ‐ 5 ‐ January 9, 2018

Select Composition under Worksheet
in the left‐hand column. Click the
Edit… button to bring up a form to
enter the composition of this stream.
Enter a 1 for the H2O mole fraction.
Select the Normalize button. Click OK.
Now you should see that the form
associated with the stream is still
yellow because the temperature has
not been specified. That is OK, we’re
going to back‐calculate the final
condition so that the total feed gas is
120°F.



For most of the unit operations we’ll define connections and create new streams using the
operations’ Design forms.

Double‐click on Mixer. Define the 2 Inlets
as Dry Feed & Feed Water (by pulling
down the stream names from the lists).
Define a new Outlet stream as Total
Feed by typing in the new name.









Select the Worksheet tab. Note that the
flowrate & pressure of the Total Feed
stream are calculated. But we still have
to specify some type of conditions to
fully calculate Total Feed. Specify the
temperature as 120°F. Note that not
only have all properties been calculated
for Total Feed but also the final
conditions for Feed Water have been
determined1.

1 A Mixer is an isenthalpic operation, so the enthalpy for Feed Water (and hence its temperature & quality)

became specified once we fully specified Total Feed.

Rev 2.1 ‐ 6 ‐ January 9, 2018



We now want to model the
gas side of the Chiller. We
could use a Cooler operation,
but since we’ll ultimately
want to calculate approach
temperatures between the
gas & the propane in the
chilling loop an LNG
Exchanger is more
appropriate. Double‐click on
Chiller. Specify the 1st Inlet
Stream as the previously
defined Total Feed & define
the Outlet Stream as a new
stream Chilled Gas. For now
specify the Pressure Drop as
0. Make sure that specification for Hot/Cold is Hot.

We now want to specify the cold
separator & determine the
properties of the produced gas.
Double‐click on DPC Separator.
Specify the Inlet as the existing
stream Chilled Gas. Create new
streams, Cold Vapor, Cold Liquid,
& Cold Water as the Vapour, Light
Liquid, & Heavy Liquid, respectively.

Rev 2.1 ‐ 7 ‐ January 9, 2018

Let’s estimate the needed
temperature for the cold separator.
Click on the Worksheet tab & specify
15°F for the temperature of Chilled
Gas. Notice that all values are
calculated for Chilled Gas, Cold
Liquid, & Cold Vapor at 15°F.

This means that the vapor out of the
separator is at its dew point at 15°F.
This makes the pipeline’s dew point
spec, right? No, not really. But how
would we know this?



We can look at the
phase envelope for
Cold Vapor to
determine if the
vapor will have a
minimum dew point
temperature at all
pressures it is likely
to experience in the
pipeline. We’ll do
this using a Stream
Analysis. Up in the
ribbon under the
Home tab, click on Stream Analysis & choose Envelope.

In the pop‐up form choose Cold Vapor as the Object & click
OK.










The results in the Design tab show that the Cricondentherm is 20°F, warmer than the temperature
needed to meet the 15°F pipeline dew point spec. At what pressure does this occur? We can view
the PT diagram by selecting the Performance tab & the Plots option; now we can see that the
maximum temperature for the phase envelope is at 600 psig, very much in the possible range of
pipeline operating pressures. Since the gas in the pipeline will experience pressures lower than the
inlet’s 1000 psia, it is more appropriate to use the cricondentherm as the controlling value for this
spec. And since the temperature is 20°F, this gas does not make this spec.

Rev 2.1 ‐ 8 ‐ January 9, 2018



For now we’ll use trial‐and‐error to
determine an appropriate
temperature for the cold separator.
Note that if we specify the
temperature of Chilled Gas as 9.5°F
we get a cricondentherm of Cold
Vapor of just over 15°F.

Rev 2.1 ‐ 9 ‐ January 9, 2018



Now that we’ve met the dew point
spec we can determine if we’ve met
the heating value spec. We can
determine this from additional
properties calculated for Cold
Vapor. Double‐click on Cold Vapor
& select Properties under the
Worksheet in the left‐hand column.
Notice that an HHV has been
calculated as 446.000 Btu/lb.mole. Is
this within the acceptable range?
Since the units are different than
those in the spec (950 – 1050
Btu/scf) we have to do a unit
conversion. Instead, let’s reset the
units used for reporting the results &
come back to this.


Setting the Units Used by HYSYS
The preference for this example is to use U.S. Customary units typically
used in the gas processing industry: temperature in °F, pressure in psia,
molar flow in MMscf/day, heating values in Btu/scf, liquid flow in
gal/min, & mass flow in lb/hr. The default that was in place when this
simulation was started was pretty close. But let’s do better.

Under the Home tab there is a section for Units that show the current set
being used & a button to change options within a unit set. For this
problem the default is a set called Refining‐US1 (for new files the starting
set is dependent on what was previously used on the particular computer
being used). To control the actual set being used let’s create a new one which we will call Gas

Rev 2.1 ‐ 10 ‐ January 9, 2018

Processing‐US. Click on the Unit Sets button to bring up the form to examine the available unit sets &
change (if desired).

In the lower section let’s start with the Field unit set. Select Field & press Copy. A new unit set will
be created (here called NewUser). Double click on this name & enter Gas Processing‐US.

In the upper section we can set the units used for various properties in the simulation. We can see
that most units used are very reasonable. For example, temperature is in °F, actual liquid volume
flow as USGPM, & pressure is in psia. (Great! We don’t have to do anything for this.).

Rev 2.1 ‐ 11 ‐ January 9, 2018



Let’s change the units for molar flow & heating value to meet out purposes. Go to the Display Units
list & change these units to MMSCFD & Btu/SCF, respectively. Now we can close this form by
clicking OK.

Now that we’ve changed the units on
heating value we can go back to the
properties for Cold Vapor to see if
we’ve made the HHV (higher heating
value) spec. Now the value is clearly
reported as 1175 Btu/scf & we see
that it is too high. This will require
more heavy hydrocarbons be
removed. But before we focus on this
let’s add additional processing to
stabilize the liquid formed (since this
will involve recycling back some
evolved gas).



Liquid Stabilization
Before change conditions to lean out the gas let’s determine if the produced liquid will make the
TVP spec of 103 psia. Double‐click on Cold Liquid & select Properties under the Worksheet heading
in the left‐hand column. At the bottom of the list there is an item for True VP at 37.8 C [psia]. The
value is 654.9 psia, much higher than our spec. We can look at the composition to see the problem –
it has 16% methane. This is much too high to try to have in a raw NGL mix.

Rev 2.1 ‐ 12 ‐ January 9, 2018



We can process the high‐pressure liquid in a lower
pressure stripping column to remove these light ends. Let’s
add two more units:
 A Control Valve, VLV‐001
 A Reboiled Absorber, Stabilizer.

Rev 2.1 ‐ 13 ‐ January 9, 2018

Double‐click on VLV‐100. Specify the
Inlet as Cold Liquid and define a new
stream Flashed Liquid as the Outlet.
There is a message that the pressre drop
across valve is unknown, but that is OK,
we’ll set that in a bit.










Let’s define the stabilizing column as
a 10‐stage column with a kettle
reboiler. Double‐click on the Reboiled
Absorber. Rename it Stabilizer. Set
the Top Stage Inlet feed as Flashed
Liquid. Define new streams
Recovered Gas for the Ovhd Vapour
Outlet and Stabilized Liquid for the
Bottoms Liquid Outlet. Define the
stream Q‐Reboiler for the Reboiler
Energy Stream. Set the # Stages as 10.
Press the Next> button to continue
the definition for this tower.



Accept the default Once‐Through
reboiler configuration. This will
model a kettle reboiler. Press the
Next > button to continue the tower’s
definition.

Rev 2.1 ‐ 14 ‐ January 9, 2018

Let’s look running the tower at 200
psia. Specify 200 for both Top Stage
Pressure & the Reboiler Pressure.
Press the Next > button to continue
the tower’s definition.










We’re able to specify temperatures
on this next form. Ultimately we will
want to run the reboiler in such a
way as to produce a liquid with a
103 psia vapor pressure at 100°F. If
we were running the tower at 103
psia then we could set the reboiler
temperature as 100°F. However,
since we’re running the tower at a
higher pressure the reboiler
temperature should be higher; for
now let’s set an estimate of 200°F.
Press the Next > button to continue
the tower’s definition.

We will not have to specify a boil‐up
ratio since we’re going to use a TVP
spec on the reboiler. Leave this
blank & press Done…

Rev 2.1 ‐ 15 ‐ January 9, 2018

 The tower does not run
automatically because
the specifications have
not been fully defined.
Select Specs Summary
item in the left‐hand
column. Notice that the
default spec on the
column is to produce an
overhead product rate
(whose value has not
been specified). But this
is not how we want to
run this column. Before
we enter the true spec
click on the Active box
for Ovhd Prod Rate to
turn it off.

Let’s add the reboiler temperature as the
operating spec. Select Specs item in the left‐
hand column. Press the Add button for column
specifications. On the list select Column
Temperature & press Add Spec(s)… Select
Reboiler as the Stage & enter 200 for the Spec
Value. Close this form.

Link

https://process-designand-simulation.blogspot.com/search/label/1%29%20Aspen%20Tech%20Course

Rev 2.1 ‐ 16 ‐ January 9, 2018

Even though we have
fully specified the
tower the feed coming
from VLV‐100 has not
been fully specified, so
the tower will not run.
Go to the Worksheet tab
and enter 200 for the
pressure of Flashed
Liquid. Now that this
feed is fully specified
the tower will quickly
calculate & converge.





How close are we to creating a stabilized liquid with the correct TVP? Let’s create a new spec for
this but don’t make it active; we can then see how close we are. Select the Design tab and then the
Specs item in the left‐hand column. Press the Add button for column specifications. On the list select
Column Stream Property Spec near the bottom of the list & press Add Spec(s)… Select the Stabilized
Liquid @COL1. You’ll have to go to another form to actually pick the type of stream property. Click
the Select Property button. On the next form select the tree structure under Standard & choose True
VP @ 37.8 C; press Select. Enter the value 103. Close this form.

Rev 2.1 ‐ 17 ‐ January 9, 2018


Now let’s go back to the
Design tab & Specs
selection. Highlight the
Stream Property Spec &
you can see that the
calculated TVP is
actually 67.71 psia,
lower than the desired
103 psia. We can
decrease the reboiler
temperature to allow
the vapor pressure to
increase.





Select the Active check
box; now the tower
becomes unconverged
(because we have
overspecified the unit
with both the TVP spec
& the reboiler
temperature spec).
Select the Temperature
column specification &
uncheck its Active
checkbox. Now the
tower will reconverge;
the calculated reboiler
temperature is 166.9°F.

Rev 2.1 ‐ 18 ‐ January 9, 2018

What does the stabilized liquid look
like? Double‐click on Stabilized
Liquid & select Composition under the
Worksheet tab. Note that there is
essentially no methane & very little
ethane – all of this material has been
stripped out into the overhead vapor
stream. Just enough is allowed to
remain (by changing the reboiler
temperature) to have the desired
vapor pressure.





Let’s look at how much Gas has been
stripped out. Double‐click on
Recovered Gas. Select Composition
under the Worksheet tab. Notice that
this gas has very high concentrations
of methane & ethane. But could this be
directly produced as pipeline gas?
Select Properties. Note that the HHV is
too high, 1449 Btu/scf. More than
likely it won’t make the dew point
spec either.




Recycle of Recovered Gas
One might ask why we didn’t include a condenser on the stabilizer column. A condenser would
allow us to wash the propane & heavier (C3+) back down the column & out with the Stabilized
Liquid. We can effectively get this effect by reconfiguring the process to recycle the recovered gas
from the stabilizing column upstream of Chiller. However, since the recovered gas is produced at a
lower pressure, it must be compressed to a higher pressure consistent with the original feed gas.

Rev 2.1 ‐ 19 ‐ January 9, 2018


Let’s add three units:
 A Compressor, Recycle Gas Compressor
 A Mixer, Recycle Mixer.
 A Recycle, RCY‐1.

Note that some of the items have been
flipped on the PFD shown above. This was
done by selecting the item on the Flowsheet,
selecting Flowsheet/Modify in the ribbon, &
then selecting Flip Horizontal.


Double‐click Recycle Gas
Compressor. Set the Inlet as
the Recovered Gas stream.
Create an Outlet stream HP
Recycle Gas & a work Energy
stream W‐Recycle
Compressor. Select the
Worksheet tab. Set the outlet
pressure of the HP Recycle Gas
to 400 psia. Note the
calculations are completed
using the default adiabatic
efficiency, 75%, and gives an
outlet temperature of 112.7°F.

Rev 2.1 ‐ 20 ‐ January 9, 2018


Double‐click on RCY‐1.
Select HP Recycle Gas as
the Inlet. Create a stream
Recycled Gas as the
Outlet.











Now let’s combine the HP Recycle Gas with the Total Feed & introduce it into the Chiller. Double‐
click on Chiller & delete Total Feed as an Inlet Stream. Instead, create a new stream, Process Feed,
as the Inlet Stream.

Double‐click on the Mixer Recycle
Mixer. Select Process Feed as the
Outlet. For now, only select Total
Feed as the Inlet.









At this point the simulation has
converged but without the Recycled
Gas being mixed with the fresh feed.
But the stream has been initialized
and the recycle calculation can
proceed. Now, double‐click on
Recycle Mixer & add Recycled Gas as
the second Inlet stream. Now the
simulation should converge including
this recycle back to the fresh feed.

Rev 2.1 ‐ 21 ‐ January 9, 2018

How has adding the recycle gas affected the final results? There is not a great deal of Recycled Gas
being mixed with the fresh feed so the composition of the Cold Vapor does not change by much. The
cricondentherm increases only slightly to 15.07°F.

The produced gas also still has a higher heating value that is too high, 1176 Btu/scf. We can try to
decrease the HHV by reducing the temperature of the Chilled Gas. Let’s lower this temperature to
the lowest limit reasonable for a simple propane chilling loop, ‐30°F. Reducing this temperature
does shift more of the heavy ends out of the produced gas & the HHV is lower. However, the HHV of
Chilled Gas is still too high, 1145 Btu/scf. Unfortunately this is pretty much the best we can do when
using a chilled single‐stage flash separation unit.


Prevention of Freezing in DPC Separator
The inlet feed gas is nearly water saturated at the entry to the process. When the water drops out of
the gas phase when it is cooled there is a potential
freezing in the Chiller & DPC Separator. A typical
technique to prevent ice or hydrate formation is to inject
ethylene glycol (EG) upstream of the Chiller.

An aqueous solution of EG has the ability to suppress the
formation of ice. In it’s pure state EG has a freezing point
of 8°F, but aqueous solutions have freezing points that are
lower. Notice from the chart on the right1 one may get
freezing protection to ‐30°F or lower by maintaining a EG
concentration in water of 85 wt% to 50 wt%.

What are the appropriate concentrations to consider for
our process?
 We would like to make sure that there is freezing
protection for the entire concentration range
before & after the water is absorbed.
 We want protection not only at the process
temperature but also the coldest temperature at the tube wall. This means we have to
protect below the ‐30°F process temperature but to the coolant temperature of ‐40°F or
lower.

Based on these considerations we will want a concentrated EG solution of 83 wt% (protection
to ‐40°F, the coldest tube temperature expected in Chiller). This should be injected at a sufficient
rate so that it will be diluted to no lower than 80 wt% (protection to ‐50°F)2.

1 Engineering and Operating Guide for DOWTHERM SR‐1 and DOWTHERM 4000 Inhibited Ethylene Glycol‐based

Heat Transfer Fluids, Dow Chemical technical publication,

http://msdssearch.dow.com/PublishedLiteratureDOWCOM/dh_010e/0901b8038010e413.pdf?filepath=/hea
ttrans/pdfs/noreg/180‐01190.pdf&fromPage=GetDoc
2 Note that even though we could try to operate in the region of lower glycol concentrations (60 wt% diluted

to 55 wt%) the normal practice is to operate in the higher concentration range; if excess water comes in with
the gas then the higher concentrations actually get better freeze protection, not worse.

Rev 2.1 ‐ 22 ‐ January 9, 2018

 To be able to add an EG
solution we must add
ethylene glycol to the
component list. Return to
the Properties section.
Select Component List ‐1 to
view the active
component list. Highlight
H2O in the selected
components. Use the
search term “egly”. Select
EGlycol from the databank
list & press Add. The
component EGlycol will be
placed right after H2O,
second in the list.


Return to the Simulation section. Let’s
add a stream for the ethylene glycol,
EG, into the Recycle Mixer.

Link

https://process-designand-simulation.blogspot.com/search/label/1%29%20Aspen%20Tech%20Course

Rev 2.1 ‐ 23 ‐ January 9, 2018


Double‐click on the stream EG. Select Composition &
set it to 83 wt% ethylene glycol & 17 wt% water.
Select Conditions; set the pressure to 400 psia & its
temperature to 60°F (typical for underground
storage; we’ll find out a more reasonable
temperature later). For now set the mass flow rate to
5,333 lb/hr (this should make the Cold Water stream
about 80 wt% glycol).

Propane Refrigeration Loop
The next detail we can is a refrigeration loop to be able to cool
the feed & recycle gases to DPC Separator. Add the following
equipment to the flowsheet:
 A Compressor, C3 Compressor
 A Cooler, C3 Condenser.
 A Control Valve, C3 Valve.

Let’s create the streams for the refrigeration loop starting at
the Chiller. Double‐click on Chiller. Create new inlet & outlet
streams Refrig Liquid & Refrig Vapor, respectively. Make
sure that these streams are associated with the Cold side.
Specify a zero pressure drop. Under the Worksheet tab specify the conditions for the outlet stream
Refrig Vapor (1 vapor fraction & ‐40°F).

Rev 2.1 ‐ 24 ‐ January 9, 2018



Next let’s connect the cold liquid to the
let‐down valve. Double‐click on C3
Valve. Set the Outlet as Refrig Liquid.
Create a new stream Condensed Liquid
as the Inlet. Select the Worksheet tab; set
the temperature of Condensed Liquid to
120°F & the Vapour / Phase Fraction to 0
(i.e., saturated liquid). Do not specify the
pressure drop across the valve – this will
be determined automatically when the
high pressure (for condensation) and
low pressure (for vaporization) are
determined.

Rev 2.1 ‐ 25 ‐ January 9, 2018

 You can specify the composition
in almost any of the streams in
this loop. It is most convenient to
do so at the stream out of the
condenser. (Maybe not for a
single stage of compression, but
definitely most convenient when
going to multiple stages.) Double
click on the Condensed Liquid
stream. Select the Composition
item & press the Edit… button.
Enter a 1 for Propane, press
Normalize, then OK. Note that the
calculations have been
performed for this stream,
including the determination of
the flowrate (277,990 lb/hr); this flowrate has been calculated to ensure an energy balance in
Chiller.

Double‐click on C3 Compressor. Select Refrig Vapor as the Inlet & create HP Vapor as the Outlet;
create W‐C3 Compressor as the Energy stream. Normally we would want to specify the outlet
pressure, but we’re going to let HYSYS use the condenser’s pressure for this.

Rev 2.1 ‐ 26 ‐ January 9, 2018



Now let’s complete the refrigeration
loop. Double‐click on C3 Condenser.
Select HP Vapor as the Inlet &
Condensed Liquid as the Outlet;
create Q‐C3 Condenser as the Energy
stream. At this point the condenser
has not yet been fully defined. Under
Parameters set the Delta P as 0. Now
the status is green & the refrigeration
loop calculations are completed.




Product Compression
The final step in this simple simulation is to add compression for the final product gas. Add to the
flowsheet the unit:
 A Compressor, Product Gas Compressor

Double‐click on Product Gas
Compressor. Select Cold Vapor
as the Inlet & create HP Product
Gas as the Outlet; create W‐
Product Compressor as the
Energy stream. Select the
Worksheet tab; set the outlet
pressure as 1000 psia. Note that
outlet temperature is 100.9°F
(less than the spec of 120°F
minimum), so a final cooler is not
needed to be able to introduce
this gas into the pipeline.

Rev 2.1 ‐ 27 ‐ January 9, 2018

Additional detail to the Flowsheet
There many details that can be added to this flowsheet. When done with these additions the
flowsheet will look like the following.

Ethylene Glycol Regeneration
The initial flowsheet assumes that 83 wt% ethylene glycol (EG) can be made available to the
process. In an actual process this EG is not a fresh feed, but rather it is recirculated after the water
picked up in the DPC Separator is stripped out. We can add the following major operations to
regenerate the EG:
 a stripping column with a reboiler & partial condenser
 a cross‐exchanger to recover heat from the stripped EG
 a pump to bring the lean EG up to the injection pressure
 a recycle operation.

Rev 2.1 ‐ 28 ‐ January 9, 2018



Let’s create the streams while
creating the unit operations. Create
the stripping column using the
Distillation Column Sub‐flowsheet
module from the Columns tab of the
model Palette. Double click on this
module; on this first screen:
 Name the column EG
Stripper.
 Set the number of stages to 2
 Set the condenser type to
Full Rflx.
 Create the stream Hot Rich
EG as the Inlet Stream to
stage 2.
 Set the Ovhd Vapour Outlet as Water Vapor, the Bottoms Liquid Outlet as Hot Lean EG, the
Condenser Energy Stream as Q‐EG Condenser, and the Reboiler Energy Stream as Q‐EG
Reboiler.

When ready press the Next > key.

We’ll define the reboiler as a kettle
reboiler. Keep the default option of
Once‐through & Regular Hysys
reboiler and press Next >.

Rev 2.1 ‐ 29 ‐ January 9, 2018

EG strippers operate near
atmospheric condition to keep the
reboiler temperatures as low as
possible. We’ll first assume a zero
pressure drop across the column. Set
the Condenser Pressure and the
Reboiler Pressure to 1 atm. (Note that
the pressure will be converted to
units of psia.) Press Next >.





The product off the top of the column
should be essentially water vapor at
1 atm, so we can set a temperature
estimate for this as 212°F. Press Next
> when done.










For now let’s estimate the reflux
ratio as 0.15. Press Done…

Rev 2.1 ‐ 30 ‐ January 9, 2018

Let’s define the cross
exchanger that will preheat
the cold water/EG feed and
recover heat from the hot
stripper bottoms. Use the
LNG Exchanger module to
create EG Cross Exchanger
(you may want to flip the
exchanger horizontally
depending on how you place
it on your flowsheet).
Specify Cold Water as an
inlet stream & its outlet as
Hot Rich EG; specify this as a
Cold stream. Specify Hot
Lean EG as an inlet stream &
create LP Lean EG as its outlet; specify this as a Hot stream. Set both pressure drops as 0.

We’d like to start the
calculations without creating
a heat‐based recycle loop.
So, let’s specify the outlet
temperature in Hot Rich EG
as 200°F. Now the hot side
streams should be
calculated. (The tower hasn’t
executed yet so these
streams are still
unavailable.)





Let’s go back & run the column. Double click on EG stripper. We have made a specification on the
condenser but not on the reboiler. Select the Specs item. Click the Add… button for column
specifications. Select Column Component Fraction & click Add Spec(s)… Name this spec Bottoms Mass
Fraction; set the Mass Fraction value to 0.83 for EGlycol for the Liquid coming from the Reboiler.
Close this window.

Rev 2.1 ‐ 31 ‐ January 9, 2018



Select Specs Summary.
The only two active specs
should be Reflux Ratio &
Bottoms Mass Fraction.
Select Run (you may not
even have to press this
button). It should
converge very quickly.








Select the Performance
tab & the Column
Profiles item. You can
see that our estimate
for the top
temperature was
pretty close. The
bottoms temperature
is 261.1°F.

Rev 2.1 ‐ 32 ‐ January 9, 2018

The 214°F condenser temperature has the implication that there
us a fair amount of glycol in the overhead vapor. The more
glycol that leaves with the vapor, the more makeup that must be
added. Let’s minimize these glycol losses by setting the
temperature to 212°F. Do this by adding a temperature spec on
the condenser (go to the Design tab, select Specs, click Add…,
select item Column Temperature & click Add Spec(s)…; then set
the spec value for Condenser as 212 F). Now when you make
this active the column will reconverge with this as the
condenser’s temperature. You can click on the Worksheet tab &
see that there is only a small amount of glycol being lost in the
overhead.

Rev 2.1 ‐ 33 ‐ January 9, 2018

We can go back to the flowsheet & see that EG Cross Exchanger has also converged. We can now
finish up the return of the lean
EG stream. The LP Lean EG
stream needs to be pumped up to
the delivery pressure & tied in to
the EG feed stream. Add a pump
Glycol Pump (you may want to
flip horizontal depending on how
you place it on your flowsheet).
Set the Inlet as LP Lean EG,
create the Outlet as EG to
Recycle, and create the Energy
stream as W‐EG Pump. Go to the
Worksheet tab & set the pressure
for EG to Recycle as 400 psia (to
match the EG stream).

Notice that the pump outlet is 30.1°F. This is notable for two reasons:
 This is lower than the initial spec that the ethylene glycol would be entering at 60°F. The EG
Cross Exchanger actually allows us to get fairly cold by recovering refrigeration in the Cold
Water stream.
 In fact, this temperature may actually be too low. Typical return temperatures should be 40
to 55°F. This higher temperature cannot be directly specified in EG Cross Exchanger; as
soon as you change the spec from one on the outlet of the hot side to one on the cold side
you set up a recycle loop and this module cannot automatically solve this. But you can
manually reduce the temperature of Hot Rich EG until the temperature of LP Lean EG rises
above 40°F. Reducing the spec from 200°F to 191°F will do this.

Rev 2.1 ‐ 34 ‐ January 9, 2018

 Finally, let’s close off the recycle.
Double‐click on RCY‐2 & set the
Inlet as EG to Recycle & the Outlet
as EG. The calculation will quickly
converge.










Optimizing the Process
The basic process has now been set up. Note that there are three major power users:
 Product Gas Compressor – 4,027 hp
 Recycle Gas Compressor – 111 hp
 Refrigeration Compressor – 7,988 hp

In addition there are two major heat users:
 Stabilizer’s reboiler – 3. 3 MMBtu/hr
 EG stripper’s reboiler – 0.5 MMBtu/hr .

A question for optimization – can any of these streams be reduced to reduce the operating expense
for the process? Some thoughts:
 Most of these values are dependent on the operating conditions of DPC Separator. This sets
the amount of gas that needs to be recompressed, the amount of light ends to the Stabilizer
that need to be stripped off, compressed, & recycled back, and the amount of water
absorbed & regenerated in EG Stripper.
 The big operating cost and one that can be addressed with further design is the power
needed for the refrigeration loop. There are two ways that this could be done:
o We could try to recover the refrigeration from the cold streams from the DPC
Separator. By doing so there would be less refrigeration duty needed, reducing the
power requirement for the C3 Compressor. Also, by warming the Cold Liquid
before going to the Stabilizer the amount of reboiler duty will also be reduced.
However, note that by increasing the temperature of the gas before the Product Gas
Compressor the required power in this compressor will increase, negating the
majority of the power savings.
o We could increase the number of refrigeration stages of compression with associate
recycle of the intermediate gases from the intermediate stage economizers. It is
typical that a two‐stage system can save about 20% of the power required by the
refrigeration system.

Link
https://process-designand-simulation.blogspot.com/search/label/1%29%20Aspen%20Tech%20Course

Rev 2.1 ‐ 35 ‐ January 9, 2018