Simultaneous optimization of hydrogen network with desulfurization processes embedded

In refineries, hydrogen purification techniques include hydrocarbon removal units and hydrogen sulfide (H2S) removal units. Hydrocarbon removal units such as membrane separation and pressure swing adsorption (PSA) are frequently employed in the hydrogen network integration (HNI) study. However, the possibility of integrating H2S removal units into HNI study has been overlooked until recently. In the present work, an improved modeling and optimization approach has been developed to integrate H2S removal units into HNI. By introducing a desulfurization ratio, RdSpl j, simplified mass exchange network (MEN) is incorporated into hydrogen distribution network. Total annual cost (TAC) is employed as the optimizing object to investigate the tradeoffs between hydrogen distribution network cost and MEN cost. A practical case study is used to illustrate the application and effectiveness of the proposed method.