The New Schoepentoeter* Plus : A Step Ahead In the Bulk Separation of Gas-Liquid Mixtures

The new Schoepentoeter* Plus

A step ahead in the bulk separation of gas-liquid mixtures

By

Giuseppe Mosca, Pierre Schaeffer, Bart Griepsma, Sulzer Chemtech

Presented at the

AIChE Spring National Meeting

14-17 March 2011, Chicago, IL

(*) Schoepentoeter is a trademark owned by Shell

Copyright 2011: Sulzer Chemtech, Winterthur.

ABSTRACT

In the hydrocarbon industry—i.e., oil refineries, petrochemical plants, gas plants, and exploration and production facilities—it is often necessary to separate gas from liquid at a certain stage of an operation or process. The operating conditions of the mixed phases and the requirements for separation efficiency may vary widely.  Therefore, special care should be taken in selecting the most appropriate device to match the specific duty.

For a bulk gas-liquid separation, where generally not more than 95% of the liquid must be removed from the gas stream, the Schoepentoeter has proven to be one of the most effective devices available on the market. The Schoepentoeter is a Shell proprietary feed inlet vane device commonly used for introducing gas-liquid mixtures into distillation columns or gas-liquid separators.

In most of the cases, the conventional Schoepentoeter has been proven to provide very good performance, and even to exceed expectations.

There are indeed only a few applications, e.g., refinery vacuum towers, where the separation efficiency was measured to be lower than expected.

To comply also with the most severe services, Sulzer Chemtech and Shell Global Solutions have jointly developed the new Schoepentoeter Plus which substantially improves the performances of the conventional one.