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Abstract: Increase in refining demand and tighter environmental regulations have led to sharp increases in hydrogen consumption of oil refineries. Hydrogen conservation and effective use are of interest to refineries whose operations and profitability are constrained by hydrogen. Purification is widely used in hydrogen networks of refineries to reduce hydrogen production load. To minimize hydrogen utility consumption, it is necessary to optimize the hydrogen network with purification as a whole. In this paper, for hydrogen purification process, a triangle rule (which can be generalized to polygon rule) is proposed for graphical representation of its mass balance. The proposed procedure treats the product concentration and recovery rate of the purification process as adjustable parameters. An ensuing graphical method is developed for targeting the pinch point and minimum utility consumption of the hydrogen system with purification reuse. This graphical method can be used for any purification devices and in systems with any utility concentration. A refinery case is studied to demonstrate the optimization method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A pulse test is one of the simplest identification tests. Here a simple graphical method that uses the integral of pulse response and identifies a first order plus time delay (FOPTD) model is proposed. It can be effectively applied to noisy pulse responses because the integral of the pulse response is used. It can also be applied to noisy step responses, improving the previously developed area method. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Water system integration with regeneration recycling can reduce freshwater consumption and wastewater discharge to the maximum extent. In this paper, by analyzing the limiting composite curve of a single-contaminant water system, a method is proposed to construct the optimal water supply line for regeneration recycling. Accordingly the targets for regeneration recycling water systems are obtained. The targets in sequence are the minimum freshwater consumption (the minimum wastewater discharge), the minimum regenerated water flowrate, and the optimal regeneration concentration. The post-regeneration concentration is taken to be fixed in the sequential targeting procedure. The interactions of these targets are analyzed, and formulas for calculating these targets are proposed. The results show that for a single-contaminant regeneration recycling water system, the minimum freshwater consumption is determined by the shape of the limiting composite curve below the post-regeneration concentration. The optimal regeneration concentration is defined as the minimum regeneration concentration at the minimum freshwater consumption and the corresponding minimum regenerated water flowrate. The minimum regenerated water flowrate and the optimal regeneration concentration are both related to the geometrical features of the limiting composite curve of the water-using system and to the post-regeneration concentration. The optimal regeneration concentration has no direct relationship with the pinch concentration. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]