The cold section of an ethylene plant is responsible for cooling and purifying the product-grade ethylene, propylene and other bi-products from the cracking furnaces. Cracked gas is cooled in transfer-line exchangers which produce steam from the effluent gas energy. Gas is further cooled with water in the quench column, scrubbed and dried before being compressed in the cracked gas compressor and fed to the cold box.
Pumps do the heavy lifting of moving liquids through the production process. They consume more energy more than most types of plant assets and are subject to quite a bit of wear and tear. Online continuous monitoring enables operational performance improvements in...
An ethylene plant has a number of very large, very critical compressors which will cause the entire plant to shutdown if they ever trip. The cracked gas compressor increases the entire cold-side feed from around 3 psig to ~475 psig, typically through 5 stages. The two refrigeration compressors are the next biggest compressors that can also shut down the entire plant if they trip.
Cracking furnaces are one of the most crucial parts of an ethylene complex. They set the production and yield for the entire plant. For furnace-limited plants, when a furnace is down, whether for maintenance or decoking, production is lost.
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