HIDiC as A Retrofit Technology

This paper explores potential for implementation of an internally heat integrated distillation column (HIDiC) as a retrofit option, taking an actual heat pump assisted PP-splitter as the base case. The retrofit option is compared with a new VRC designed to achieve the same capacity increase by placing new unit in parallel to existing VRC. Present feasibility study indicates that a capacity increase of 70% can be realized with energy savings up to 25%, which however can not be fully realized due to heat transfer area limitation. In a feasible design the potential energy saving gain is halved. Nevertheless, regarding the scale of application, the estimated capacity increase and energy saving percentages translate into impressive financial gains, and this will hopefully help to increase chances for HIDiC to be considered by chemical process industries as a prospective debottlenecking and energy-saving technology.