02638762/02/$10.00+0.

00 # Institution of Chemical Engineers Trans IChemE, Vol 80, Part A, March 2002

DYNAMIC SIMULATION OF THE SOUR WATER STRIPPING PROCESS AND MODIFIED STRUCTURE FOR EFFECTIVE PRESSURE CONTROL
D. LEE, J.-M. LEE, S.-Y. LEE and I.-B. LEE
Department of Chemical Engineering, Automation Research Center, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Korea.

s a result of stringent government regulations regarding air and water Pollution, the sour water stripping process has emerged as an important process in petroleum re neries and coke-making works industries. The dynamics of the sour water stripping process have not been revealed as sour water is a weak electrolyte and has nonlinear characteristics. Moreover, in a real plant, there are several problems such as plugging, excessive use of steam, and dif culty in controlling the column pressure. This paper tries to solve these problems and examines controllability. Steady state simulation is used to nd the optimal operating conditions. However, the results from the steady state simulation cannot be applied to the actual system directly since the concept of controllability is ignored. Dynamic simulation is used to examine the controllability and the capability of disturbance rejection and to cope with abnormal situations which may occur in real plant. In the actual system, when the ammonia composition in feed increases, the column pressure increases rapidly. The conventional process cannot control the column pressure properly and the system becomes unstable. The proposed structure, with an inter-cooler, gives better performance than the conventional one. Keywords: distillation; dynamic simulation; electrolyte system; process control; sour water stripping process.

INTRODUCTION A steam stripping process, which is one of the separation processes, has been widely used in coke-making plant and re neries to abate chemical contaminants. Generally, wastewater from re neries and coke-making plant is contaminated with complex compounds such as hydrogen sulphide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen cyanide and ammonia. The sour water stripping process has emerged as an important process in the pollution abatement practices, because ef uent water quality regulation and energy saving are emphasized. Therefore, it is important to control the steam stripping process effectively for the removal or reduction of chemical pollutants within the environmental regulation. Sour water is mainly puri ed in a steam stripping process which uses steam to strip volatile components from a pollutant stream. However, sour water stripping plant has several problems such as plugging, excessive use of steam, and dif culty in controlling column pressure. Many researchers endeavoured to nd out the dynamics and optimal operating conditions of sour water stripping process. Walker1 proposed a method to design re uxed and non-re uxed sour water strippers quickly using actual operating data. He also suggested a concept of stripper ef ciency and studied the effect of various operating factors on stripping performance. Melin et al.2 showed simple

features on the single sour water stripper by changing H2S and NH3 concentration levels in feed, steam-to-feed ratio, the number of theoretical trays, feed tray location, and feed temperature etc. Moreover, they showed that the injection of a base, such as caustic, into the lower section of a stripper could help to meet the ammonia removal speci cation. Darton et al.3 found that stripping ef ciency is affected by the steam rate and the number of trays through the simulation and experimental studies. Hoogendoorn et al.4 compared thermodynamic models based on the weak volatile electrolyte compounds such as NH3, H2S and CO2, and discussed the applicability of the tray ef ciency concept (Murphree and vaporization ef ciency). Isla et al.5 suggested an improved scheme of sour water stripping that reduced the heating energy of the reboiler, and made attempts to nd the optimal operating conditions. All of the previous mentioned researches have mainly focused on the characteristics of a single column that separates NH3 and H2S simultaneously. On the other hand, Stein et al.6 concentrated on the improvement of the stripping ef ciency by controlling pH and developed a model which separates NH3 and H2S individually. However, they did not investigate the complex dynamics of sour water stripping and did not consider the control problem. In this paper, the complex dynamics of sour water stripping process are studied and the control problem is

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LEE et al. process. Sour water (FEED) is fed to the top of D=S and is stripped by steam (STM1) that is fed to the bottom of D=S. The stripped vapour is discharged to COR to produce sulphur. The stripped vapour is partially condensed and reenters at the top plate. Half of the bottom product, D=S (AL2), is fed to the top of A=S and the rest (SCR) is recycled to the H2S scrubber which absorbs the pollutants of the COG (Coke Oven Gas) such as H2S, HCN, and CO2. As a result of A=S steam stripping, the bottom liquid (BTM2) should include less than 100 ppmw NH3 and was nally treated in BET. Ammonia rich vapour in A=S is fed to the middle and the bottom stage of D=S from top and middle stage of A=S, respectively to reduce the column pressure of A=S. As these streams contain a high concentration of NH3 vapour, NH3 concentration of liquid in D=S is getting higher in the lower stage. The standard operating conditions and composition of sour water in A=S and D=S system are shown in Table 1. It is important to operate the sour water stripping process stably since the ef uent vapour of D=S is fed to COR and the bottom liquid of A=S is discharged to BET. The safety valve in the bottom of A=S is open when

solved. Aspen Plus1 7 was used to examine steady state simulation of sour water stripping process, and Aspen Dynamics1 8 was used to investigate the transient responses and control performance. When NH3 content in feed increases, the column pressure rises rapidly and the conventional control con guration cannot cope with the rapid pressure increase in the column. To solve these problems and improve the operating ef ciency, an alternative scheme was proposed to control the column pressure effectively and save the utility costs. SOUR WATER STRIPPING PROCESS Figure 1 shows the COG (Coke Oven Gas) puri cation system installed in Kwangyang Works of POSCO (Pohang Iron and Steel Corporation). The components areAmmonia Still (A=S), Dissociator (D=S), other sub-processes such as a Catalytic Oven Reactor (COR) and Biological Ef uent Treatment system (BET). There are 16 stages in A=S and 13 stages including a partial condenser (stage 1) in D=S. Figure 2 shows the control con guration of the sour water stripping

Figure 1. Schematic diagram of the COG puri cation system.

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Figure 2. Schematic diagram of the sour water stripping process.

Table 1. Standard operating conditions. D/S feed Temperature, C Flow rate, kg hr 1 Pressure, bar Composition, mg l 1 NH3 H2S CO2 HCN Condenser type Total stages Condenser stage Feed stage Re ux ratio Top pressure, bar Bottom pressure, bar Total stages Feed stage Top pressure, bar Bottom pressure, bar Flow rate, kg hr 1 Temperature, C Pressure, bar Flow rate, kg hr 1 Temperature, C Pressure, bar 64. 80,700. 1.6 13,000. 2500. 8000. 100. Partial-vapour 13. 1. 2. 1.54 1.29 1.35 16. 1. 1.33 1.55 1500 170 2 5900 170 2

STRIPPING REACTIONS Solutes to be removed in this process are weak electrolytes, which are partially dissociated into ions in the liquid phase. The components in this system are: H2O, NH3, H2S, CO2 and HCN. For these components, Henrys law is applied to simulation of the system including NH3, H2S, CO2, and HCN since they are light gases. The following reactions are of interest for this study: 2H2 O $ H3 O+ + OH H2 S + H2 O $ H3 O+ + HS HS + H2 O $ H3 O+ + S2 CO2 + 2H2 O $ H3 O+ + HCO3 HCO 3 + H2 O $ H3 O+ + CO3 2 NH3 + H2 O $ NH4 + + OH NH3 + HCO3 $ NH2 COO + H2 O (R.1) (R.2) (R.3) (R.4) (R.5) (R.6) (R.7) (R.8)

D/S column speci cation

A/S column speci cation

D/S steam A/S steam

the vapour load increases in top stage of D=S, column pressure is then over 0.6 kg1cm 2 in the bottom of A=S. Precise pressure control of D=S is essential for stable operation of sour water stripping process.
Trans IChemE, Vol 80, Part A, March 2002

Reactions are assumed to be in equilibrium and equilibrium constants are correlated by the following equation: ln(Keq ) = A + B=T + C ln(T ) + DT (1)

HCN + H2 O $ H3 O+ + CN

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Table 2. Equilibrium constant data. ln(Keq ) = A + B=T + C ln(T ) + DT T in Kelvin

Reaction 2H2 O $ H3 O + OH H2 S + H2 O $ H3 O+ + HS HS + H2 O $ H3 O+ + S2 CO2 + 2H2 O $ H3 O+ + HCO 3 HCO + H2 O $ H3 O+ + CO2 3 3 NH3 + H2 O $ NH+ + OH 4 NH3 + HCO $ NH2 COO + H2 O 3 HCN + H2 O $ H3 O+ + CN
+

A 132.8989 214.5824 9.74196 231.4654 216.0504 1.25656 4.58343 22.90254

B 13445.9 12995.4 8585.47 12092.1 12431.7 3335.7 2900 9945.53

C 22.4773 33.5471 0 36.7816 35.4819 1.4971 0 0

D 0 0 0 0 0 0.037057 0 0.049579

Keq 1.232 10 16 5 10 9 3.14 10 15 7 10 9 1.336 10 12 2.84 10 7 30.1306 1.7 10 10

where Keq is the equilibrium constant, T is temperature in Kelvin, and A, B, C, and D are the equilibrium coef cients. The equilibrium constant data (1) are given in Table 2. In order to predict the thermodynamic properties of vapour and liquid mixtures, many equations of state were presented. However, sour water is a weak electrolyte mixture and consequently needs a more complex model such as ELECNRTL (Aspen Plus1 7). The Electrolyte-NRTL activity coef cient model, ELECNRTL, is the recommended option set for simulation of electrolyte mixture. ELECNRTL is used to calculate liquid phase properties and vapour phase properties are calculated from the Redlich-Kwong equation of state. ELECNRTL can represent aqueous and aqueous=organic electrolyte systems over the entire range of electrolyte concentrations with a single set of binary interaction parameters.

component is the measure of its ability to strip contaminant, and can be de ned as follows1. stripping efficiency = mass flow rate of stripped vapour in D=S 100 mass flow rate of feed in D=S (2)

STEADY STATE SIMULATION The sour water system was simulated using the RADFRAC module, which is a rigorous model for simulating all types of multistage vapour-liquid fractionation operations. The results of the steady state simulation were compared with the actual plant data to verify the reliability of the simulation. It was shown that the behaviour of the actual plant could be predicted quite well using the simulation model presented in Table 3. Simulation was carried out to analyse the in uence of various operating conditions on the stripping ef ciency. The stripping ef ciency of each

The variables under consideration are feed temperature, feed location and feed composition etc. Optimum operating conditions were sought to improve the stripping ef ciency of A=S and D=S. Low concentration of H2O should be maintained in the ef uent vapour of D=S since excessive H2O causes the plugging phenomena with combining other salts and deactivates the catalyst in subprocess such as COR or incinerator. High mass fraction H2S should be stripped in D=S since about half of the bottom liquid in the D=S is recycled to the H2S scrubber to absorb H2S from raw COG. Bottom liquid in the A=S should be discharged in the level of 100 ppmw NH3, since excess free NH3 has a bad effect on activated sludge in BET. The objective function, which is used in the simulation, is to minimize energy consumption in two columns and satisfy the NH3 content below the level of 100 ppmw in the discharging bottom liquid of A=S. From the result of simulations, it is known that stripping ef ciency was improved when the CO2 concentration is kept low in the feed, sour water is fed to stage 4, the mass ow rate of side vapour stream REC2 is low, feed temperature is high and caustic is used. However, there are high operating and maintenance costs when caustic is used. It is dif cult to absorb H2S and CO2 selectively from COG into the H2S scrubber without an understanding of the sour water stripping process and precise control of the NH3 concentration in

Table 3. Comparison between operating data and simulation results. Operating data D/S A/S D/S bottom liquid (BTM1) A/S bottom liquid (BTM2) Top temperature, C Bottom temperature, C Top temperature, C Bottom temperature, C NH3, mg l 1 H2S, mg l 1 CO2, mg l 1 HCN, mg l 1 NH3, mg l 1 H2S, mg l 1 CO2, mg l 1 HCN, mg l 1 91 94 99 101 98 101 111 113 17,000 23,000 1200 2200 2000 6000 No data Below 100 Below 15 Below 150 No data Simulation results 93.5 100.3 99.9 112.3 21,166. 2075. 2980. 131. 93. 1. < 1. 10.

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Table 4. Operating conditions and simulation results. Component Mass ow rate of the side vapour stream (REC2) Feed stage D/S ef uent vapour (mass fraction) Before 2,100.kg h H2O NH3 H2S CO2 HCN NH3 HCN
1

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After 500.kg h 1 5. 0.125 0.179 0.102 0.590 0.004 22.p pmw 5.ppmw

A/S bottom liquid (mass fraction)

2. 0.151 0.107 0.105 0.632 0.004 98.p pmw 10.p pmw

the bottom liquid of the D=S, which is recycled to the H2S scrubber to absorb H2S, CO2, and HCN. Absorption in the H2S scrubber is not included in this research. From the present point of view, it is recommended that the other variables are manipulated. Table 4 shows the simulation results after changing the operating conditions. Mass ow rate of the side vapour stream (REC2) is decreased from 2l00 kg h1 to 500 kg h1 and the fth stage is used as a feed stage instead of a second stage to improve the separation performance of A=S and D=S. Steam quantity was reduced from 5900 kg h1 to 5560 kg h1 and NH3 was removed down to 22 ppmw in A=S bottom ow after changing operation conditions as shown in Table 4. DYNAMIC SIMULATION It is important to consider dynamic responses in the system design phase of major engineering projects. Equipment requirement can be modi ed in system design under consideration of process control. When operating conditions are changed, parameters of the present process design may not now be correct or the process may not be controllable. However, exact information about the present process cannot be obtained from steady state simulation results because results of steady state simulation are the information about the system under perfect control. This is true in the sour water stripping process where an unstable situation may be present when operation conditions are changed. It is dif cult to evaluate whether the steady state results can be applied to the actual process or not because the transient responses are not predicted in the steady state model. The column pressure is very sensitive to NH3 content in feed. And the information about column pressure cannot be obtained from the steady state model since pressure in the columnis assumed to be xed in the steady state simulation.To overcome this shortcoming,dynamicsimulationis considered. Dynamic simulation is used to investigate the dynamics of column behaviour and the disturbance rejection capability. Generally, Aspen Plus1 is used to evaluate a process in terms of the steady state energy consumption, yield improvement, and process modi cation while Aspen Dynamics1 is used for dynamic process analyses. Also, process and control alternatives can be evaluated using Aspen Dynamics1 . The dynamic modelling procedures are as follows9. Each Stage Material balance: X dM ri = Lin + Vin Lout Vout + dt Trans IChemE, Vol 80, Part A, March 2002 (3)

Component balance: d(Mxi ) = Lin xi;in + Vin xi;in Lout xi;out dt Vout xi;out + ri d(MH ) = dt Lin H L i;in + Vin H V i;in LoutH L i;out dH = 0 dt Equilibrium: Pyi = gi xi Pi ; T V = T L ; Holdup: M = f (L; r; vol) Hydraulics: DP = f (M ; V ) Partial Condenser Material balance: dM = Vin Vout Lout dt
vap

(4)

Vout H V i;out ;

(5)

yi = 1

(6) (7) (8)

(9)

Component balance: d(Mxi ) = Vin xi;in Lout xi;out Vout xi;out dt Energy balance: d(MH ) = dt Vin H V i;in Lout H L i;out Vout H V i;out Qc ; dH = 0 dt

(10)

(11)

Holdup: M = f (L; r; vol)

Equilibrium: Pyi = gi xiPi ; T V X yi = 1 = T L;

vap

(12) (13)

The steady state simulation data and additional data, such as vessel volumes and initial holdups in vessels, are required

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Table 5. Column speci cations. A/S Sump (vessl geometry) Tray geometry Head type Height Diameter Diameter Tray spacing Weir height Vessel type Head type Length Diameter Head type Height Diameter Diameter Tray spacing Weir height Ellptical 4280.mm 3100.mm 2930.mm 580.mm 80.mm Vertical Elliptical 4400.mm 1500.mm Elliptical 1190.mm 2370.mm 2200.mm 650.mm 60.mm

D/S

Re ux drum (vessl geometry)

Sump (vessel geometry) Tray geometry

to carry out the dynamic simulation. Table 5 represents column speci cation of A=S and D=S. OPEN-LOOP TRANSIENT RESPONSES (EFFECT OF STEP CHANGE IN FEED COMPOSITION AND FEED RATE) From steady state simulation, it is known that stripping ef ciency is mainly affected by the feed composition. CO2 especially in uences the stripping ef ciency of other components: When CO2 content increases in feed composition, the stripping ef ciency of NH3 decreases and stripping ef ciencies of H2S and HCN increase. NH3 content in feed affects the column temperature when pressures of each stage are assumed to be constant. Figure 3 represents the open-loop transient response of mass fraction of NH3 in bottom liquid of A=S and pressure in stage 1 of D=S after CO2 content in feed was adjusted from 8 g l1 to 9 g l1 at 5 hr. No control loops are applied to the process except the level control of each drum and condenser. Figure 3 shows that the CO2 content in feed has

an effect on both column pressure and stripping ef ciency of NH3, also, as the NH3 or H2S content in feed increases, the column pressure increases and the stripping ef ciency of NH3 decreases. The transient response to the step increase of feed ow rate by 5% is shown in Figure 4. As the feed ow rate increases, the column pressure decreases sharply while mass fraction of NH3 bottom liquid of A=S (BTM2) increases. CONTROLLABILITY ANALYSIS Identi cation of the key process objectives, translation of these objectives into achievable control objectives, and integration of the control objectives within an overall control strategy are required to develop the successful process control scheme. In a sour water stripping process, a control objective can be expressed as meeting a target speci cation of NH3 for A=S ef uent liquid (BTM2) while maximizing the stripping ef ciency and stabilizing the operation. To maintain the system in optimum operating conditions within a safety

Figure 3. Open-loop transient responses of NH3 mass fraction in A/S bottom liquid and pressure in stage 1 of D/S when CO2 content in feed increases from 8 g l 1 to 9 g l1 at 5 hr.

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Figure 4. Open-loop transient response of NH3 mass fraction in A/S bottom liquid and pressure of stage 1 in D/S, to step increases by 5% in feed ow rate at 5 hr.

limit, simulation of a system with control loops were implemented. The control system consists of two control loops besides level control loops of drum and condenser. Figure 2 shows the control con guration of the sour water stripping process. The amount of inlet steam (STM2) is manipulated to control the NH3 content in discharging bottom liquid (BTM2) of A=S in control loop 1. For control loop 2, the ow rate of ef uent vapour is manipulated to control the column pressure. Proportional-Integral (PI) controllers were used and time delays were assumed to be 5 minutes for the composition controller and 10 seconds for

the pressure controller. MIMO (Multiple Input and Multiple Output) loop is tuned by using the sequential tuning method10. The relay feedback tests are repeated until satisfactory control performance can be obtained by the sequential tuning method. Figure 5 shows the relay feedback test between input and output of the composition control scheme. From the relay feedback test of each control con guration, the ultimate gain and the ultimate frequency are obtained. Then, the PI controller parameters can be determined from the ZieglerNichols tuning rule. The Ziegler-Nichols method is a

Figure 5. Relay feedback test for composition control scheme.

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Table 6. Controller tuning parameter. Loop1 Kc, %/% tI, min 0.868 45. Loop2 19.3 3.

LEE et al.

New Loop2 5. 20.

popular method in tuning PID controllers because of its simplicity. The Ziegler-Nichols method is modi ed to make the tuning constants more conservative. Luyben11 proposed the BLT (Biggest Log Modulus) tuning rule, that is, a single detuning factor is employed to nd the appropriate constant.
Kc;ZN f tI = tI;ZN f

Kc =

(14)

not affect sub-process, COR. However, it is not proper to control the column pressure by manipulating the ef uent vapour ow rate of D=S in the sour water stripping process since the sub-process is affected by the ef uent vapour ow rate of D=S. The sour water stripping process was simulated to evaluate whether column pressure is controllable or not by manipulating the condenser duty. Figure 8, shows that it was impossible to control the column pressure by manipulating the condenser duty (or cooling water) in D=S because pressure increases in the upper stages of the column and pressure in the top stage in the D=S is lower than the other stages of A=S and D=S. For stable pressure control of the entire column, it is not suf cient to adjust the top environment only. MODIFIED STRUCTURE FOR EFFECTIVE PRESSURE CONTROL Since it is nearly impossible to control the column pressure by manipulating the ef uent vapour ow rate or condenser duty in the sour water stripping process, adjusting the feed ow rate or steam ow rate has been considered as a manipulating variable to control the column pressure. However, if feed ow rate is not constant, operation of the H2S scrubber, which supplies the feed of the sour water stripping process, can be unstable. Manipulating the steam ow rate of the D=S, cannot satisfy column control and composition control, because compositions of column bottoms in A=S and D=S are directly affected by steam ow rate. Manipulating feed temperature is an alternative method to control the column pressure. However, the amount of feed quantity (about 80,000 kg h1) is expected to cause long time delays in activating the control action. Chin12 and Sloley13 provided a comprehensive review of pressure control for distillation columns, however, those are

where Kc,ZN and tl,ZN are proportional gain and integral time obtained from the Ziegler-Nichols tuning rule, and f is a detuning factor. To make the control performance conservative, detuning factor f = 2 is used for control loop 1. The tuning parameters of each controller are presented in Table 6. Figure 6 represents the control performance of control loop 1 when the point of NH 3 content in the bottom liquid of A=S is changed from 82 ppmw to 90 ppmw at initial state, and NH3 concentration in the feed of D=S increases from 13 g l1 to 14 g l 1 at 5 hr. Set point tracking and disturbance rejection show good control performance in control loop 1. However, it is impossible to control the column pressure effectively with the conventional control scheme in the sour water stripping system. Figure 7 shows that the manipulating variable (VAP) reached its saturation point when NH3 concentration in feed increased from 13 g l1 1 4 gl1 at 5 hr. The saturation value of ef uent vapour (VAP) ow is assumed to be 1480 kg hr1 assuming that this quantity does

Figure 6. Control performance of control loop 1 when set point of NH3 content in A/S bottom liquid is changed from 82 ppmw to 90 ppmw and NH3 content in feed increase from 13 g l 1 to 14 gl 1 at 5 hr.

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Figure 7. Control performance of control loop 2 after sequential tuning when NH3 content in feed increases from 13 g l1 to 14 g l1 at 5 hr.

Figure 8. Control performance when cooling water of condenser is used to control column pressure (NH3 concentration in feed increases from 13 g l1 to 14 g l 7 1 at 5 hr).

not suitable for controlling the column pressure in the sour water stripping process, due to above mentioned reason. An alternative scheme is represented to control the column pressure of the sour water stripping process in Figure 9. Generally, inter-condenser or inter-reboiler are used when the thermodynamic ef ciency of a conventional distillation column is low and the heating or cooling cost of a distillation column is high. Here, a pump-around side cooler is used to reduce the heat duty of an overhead condenser and the vapour loading in the steam stripping distillation and to overcome the problem of controlling the column pressure. When the NH3 content in the feed of D=S increases in the conventional scheme, temperature and vapour load increase in the column. Consequently, column pressure increases Trans IChemE, Vol 80, Part A, March 2002

rapidly due to heavy vapour load. However, column pressure can be controlled by using pump-around side cooler. Figure 10 shows control performance of the proposed control scheme. The NH3 content in the feed of the D=S is changed from 13g l1 to 14 g 11 as a disturbance at 5 hr and 16,000 kg hr1 of liquid is pumped around from the fth tray to the second tray of the D=S. It is shown that control performance is improved by using the pump-around side cooler. This process is stable, since the ooding factor of the process is in the level of the stable conventional structure. Although stripping ef ciency decreases, it can be compensated for by changing the operating conditions as mentioned in the steady state simulation (see Figure 11). From the results of steady state simulation, the stripping ef ciency is maximized when the feed stage is 5 and

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Figure 9. Modi ed control scheme of sour water stripping process.

Figure 10. Control performance of the proposed control scheme when NH3 content in feed increases from 13 g l1 to 14 g l1 at 5 hr.

ow rate of side vapour stream (REC2) is 500 kg hr1 16,000 kg hr 1 of liquid is taken out from the fth tray and cooled through the pump-around side cooler. Then the cooled liquid re-enters the rst tray. It is recommended that the liquid is drawn out from the stage just below the feed inlet, since the temperature is low enough and the amount of liquid to be taken out is abundant. This is an effective control of the column pressure, by directly reducing the vapour load in the rectifying section, since the amount of vapour is greater in the rectifying section than in the stripping section.

CONCLUSION Steady state simulations of the sour water steam stripping process were performed to nd out the best operating conditions to improve stripping ef ciency in A=S and D=S, and satisfy the environmental regulations of NH3 in the bottom liquid of A=S. Dynamic simulation was performed to investigate the disturbance rejection capability and to solve several problems in the actual system. It was estimated that the present process had a problem in controlling the column pressure. An alternative scheme that uses a Trans IChemE, Vol 80, Part A, March 2002

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Figure 11. H2S mass fraction pro le in VAP for conventional structure (REC2 is 2, 100 kg h1 and feed stage is 2) and proposed structure (REC2 is 500 kg h1 and feed stage is 5) which use a pump-around side-cooler when NH3 concentration increases from 13 g l1 to 14 g l1 at 5 hr.

pump-around side cooler was proposed to effectively control the column pressure. As a result of dynamic simulation, the suggested scheme showed better control performance without changing the ooding factor in these facilities. NOMENCLATURE
A, B, C, D f HL HV Keq Kc, ZN L M P Pvap Qc ri T tI, ZN V vol xi yi r equilibrium coef cients detuning factor molar liquid enthalpy molar vapour enthalpy equilibrium constant proportional gain from the Ziegler-Nichols tuning rule molar liquid ow molar holdup pressure vapour pressure condenser duty reaction rate of component i temperature, K integral time obtained from the Ziegler-Nichols tuning rule molar vapour ow volume of stage=condenser=reboiler molar liquid concentration of component I molar vapor concentration of component I density

4. Hoogendooren, G. C., Abellon R. D., Essens P. J. and Wesselingh, J. A., 1988, Desorption of volatile electrolytes in a tray column (sour water stripping), Chem Eng Res, 66: 483502. 5. Isla, M. A., Irazoqui, H. A. and Cerda, J., 1989, Improving sour water strippers, Hydrocarbon Proc, 6566. 6. Stein, C., Elster, J., Heine, I., Sachse, J. and Peper, H., 1988, Removal of ammonium nitrogen and hydrogen sulphide from oil re nery waste water, Oil Gas-Euro Mag, 24(4): 3639. 7. Aspen Plus1 Electrolytes Manual, 1998, Aspen Technology Inc. 8. Aspen Dynamics1 User Guide Version 10.1-0, 1998, Aspen Technology Inc. 9. Sneesby, M. G., Tade, M. O. and Smith, T. N., 1997, ETBE synthesis via reactive distillation (2. dynamic simulation and design aspects), Ind Eng Chem Res, 36: 18701881. 10. Shen, S. H. and Yu, C. C., 1994, Use of relay-feedback test for automatic tuning of multivariate systems, AICHE J, 40(4): 627646. 11. Luyben, W. L., 1986, Simple method for tuning SISO controllers in multivariate systems, Ind Eng Chem Process Des Dev, 25: 654. 12. Chin, T. G., 1979, Guide to distillation pressure control methods, Hydorc Proc, 86(10): l45153. 13. Sloley, A. W., 2001, Effectively control column pressure, Chem Eng Prog, January: 3848.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work was supported by the Brain Korea 21 project.

ADDRESS REFERENCES
1. Walker, G. J., 1969, Design sour water strippers quickly, Hydrocarbon Proc, 48(6): 121124. 2. Melin, G. A., Niedzwiecki, J. L. and Goldstein, A. M., 1975, Optimum design of sour water strippers, Chem Eng Prog, 71(6): 7882. 3. Darton, R. C., van Grisven, P. F. A. and Simmon, M. M., 1978, Development in steam stripping of sour water, Chem Eng, December: 923927. Correspondence concerning this paper should be addressed to Professor In-Beum Lee, Department of Chemical Engineering, Automation Research Center, Pohang University of Science and Technology, San 31 Hyoga Dong, Pohang, 790784, Korea. E-mail: iblee@postech.ac.kr The manuscript was communicated via our International Editor for Japan, Professor S. Koda. It was received 28 March 2001 and accepted for publication after revision 10 October 2001.

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