Unit 12 Typical Industrial Plant Configurations Flashcards
Steam is the principal energy transfer medium that industry depends on for its process applications. It provides energy for process
Heating, pressure control, mechanical drives, electrical generation and component separation
Advantages of steam
Low toxicity, transportability, high efficiency, high heat capacity and low acquisition and production costs
Most of the heat contained in Steam is in the form of
Latent heat
Heat transfer fluid systems (HTF) - hot oil
Industrial Systems were a special heat transfer fluid, not water, is circulated by a pump through a fired heat exchanger.
HTF systems may be preferred when the temperature is above
175°C
Steam is generated in a boiler by
Transferring thermal energy released in a heat generating process, into liquid water. The additional energy carried by the steam is transferred out of the steam by thermal or mechanical action
Generation
3 heat conversion mediums
HTF, Compressed Gas, Steam
The efficiency of distribution is affected by
Thermal insulation, piping and component separation Technologies
Steam accumulators
Allow the additional energy in excess steam to be discharged into a pressure vessel partially filled with water
During system startup, steam traps allow
Air in equipment and lines to escape
Examples of end use processes
Process heating, mechanical Drive, electrical generation, enabling chemical reactions, fractionation of hydrocarbon components
Two types of processes
Physical and chemical
Absorption process
Absorbing agents called molecular sieves, are used as a filtering medium. The medium separates on the basis of physical size of molecules being different
Crystallization process
A crystalline substance is separated from a non-crystalline one by cooling the solution, and separating the components via a separating process such as filtering or centrifugation.
Dilution
Steam is often used to dilute a process gas which can reduce solid buildup on heat exchangers
Distillation/fractionation
During distillation, usually in a fractionation tower, compounds are separated into fractions by differential boiling points.
Process of drying or evaporation
The vaporization and removal of water or other liquids from a solution
Process quenching
Used to cool and thus stop High temperature reaction processes
Solvent extraction
Separation process which separates substances by using differences in solubility between compound in complex mixtures
Stripping Towers
Steam pulls unwanted contaminants from a process fluid and directs them to waste or back into the process
Thermo-mechanical
Direct conversion of thermal energy into mechanical action, which occurs in the final stages in industrial plants
Thermo-mechanical pulping (TMP)
Direct conversion of mechanical action into thermal energy
Chemical conversion process
Converts one compound into another by chemical reaction. Involves chemical manipulation of molecular size or chemical structure
Molecular size reduction
Involves converting a surplus of unsaleable product with a large molecular size into a smaller one that is in demand