Heat exchangers in refineries

This secondary refining process treats heavier atmospheric distillation components under reduced pressure, effectively lowering high-boiling hydrocarbons' boiling points to minimize thermal cracking and degradation, with the aid of heat exchangers. The vacuum distillation unit takes residue from the atmospheric distillation unit to produce vacuum distillates, vacuum gas oil, slop wax, residue and feed stock for fluid catalytic cracking and hydrocracker units. Tranter’s NovusBloc welded block heat exchanger is employed in preheating of the atmospheric residue or hydrocracker bottoms (bottoms feed exchangers), which is fed to the fired heater where they are further heated and partially vaporized. The overhead from the VDU is condensed in a Tranter NovusBloc or shell and plate heat exchangers and combined with the vacuum steam.

FCC, is a key process in the petroleum refining industry. It's used to convert mixed hydrocarbons into lighter, more valuable products like olefins, high octane gasoline and diesel. FCC overhead vapors flow to the fractionator where they are separated into an overhead stream containing the wet vapors and a heavier stream containing the hydrocarbon liquids. Tranter’s shell and plate heat exchanger is well suited for condensation of light hydrocarbons leaving the top of the fractionator while the two-side cleanable NovusBloc welded block heat exchanger is the preferred choice for the heavier streams. Plate heat exchangers enable a close temperature approach and is well suited for preheating, thus, saving energy consumption in the plant. The heavy liquids or the bottoms product often contains highly fouling products.

The acid gas removal or sulfur recovery process, removing acidic gases such as Hydrogen Sulfide. The process is commonly done by Amine absorption, where Tranter’s gasketed and welded plate heat exchangers are used as heat recovery in the lean/rich amine interchanger/pre-heater to reduce the amount of steam needed for the reboiler, improving the total economy of the plant. Our heat exchangers also provide excellent temperature control as lean amine coolers, thermosyphon reboilers and stripper overhead condensers. In refineries the gas streams normally have very high levels of toxic hydrogen sulfide and high levels of aliphatic hydrocarbon carry-over, thus the fluid contaminants are normally a difficult task for gaskets. Tranter’s NovusBloc welded block heat exchangers provide a gasket-free design for amine services, with high resistance against process upsets, with maintained cleanability on both the lean and rich amine side. A horizontally mounted NovusBloc welded block heat exchanger for the reboiler and overhead condenser provide free flow with low pressure drop and full accessibility on the process side.

Gasketed plate heat exchangers are seldom used inside the refinery processes due to high temperatures, pressures and difficult fluids. A closed loop of cooling medium, normally water or water/glycol mixture is used for all the different cooling duties in the refinery. The cooling medium is cooled by seawater/lake water in gasketed plate and frame heat exchangers to avoid using corrosive and erosive seawater inside the process. Tranter’s plate and frame heat exchangers are optimal for large cooling medium cooler duties, capable of handling close temperature approaches and large volumes with minimum plot space requirements. The wastewater from the plants is treated to be reintroduced to the process or back to the source. Plate heat exchangers are a good choice for wastewater treatment plants as they reduce fouling tendencies and are easy to open for maintenance.

The wastewater from the refinery is treated to be reintroduced to the process or back to the source. Plate heat exchangers are a good choice for wastewater treatment plants as they reduce fouling tendencies and are easy to open for maintenance.