The ChemSep/COCO Casebook: Air Separation Unit

Harry Kooijman and Ross Taylor

Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY 13699
and
Jasper van Baten
AmsterCHEM, Delft, The Netherlands

The objective of this article is to describe the modeling of an air separation unit using the (free)
TM
flowsheeting system known as COCO (van Baten et al., CACHE News, Fall, 2006), and ChemSep .

The cryogenic air separation process shown in Figure 1 involves the tight integration of heat exchangers
and separation columns that is completely driven by the compression of the air at the inlet of the unit. The
air inlet stream is cooled and partially liquefied against the leaving product streams. Nitrogen is then
separated at a pressure of 6 bar in the first column and condensed against boiling oxygen at a lower
pressure (around 1.2 bar). These two columns share the same column shell to minimize the temperature
difference between the condensing nitrogen and evaporating oxygen. The liquid bottom product of the
high pressure column is rich in oxygen and is reduced in pressure. The Joule-Thomson (JT) effect cools
this rich liquid such that it can be used to run the condenser of a side rectifier that separates argon from
oxygen. This side rectifier is fed with a vapor side draw from the low pressure column. The whole process
requires additional cooling which can be obtained using an expander that feeds compressed air directly to
the low pressure column. Thus, a certain part of the air cannot be separated but leaves the unit as a
waste stream. Gaseous nitrogen and oxygen, and liquid argon are the products. With temperature
differences in the heat exchangers of just a few degrees Kelvin; clearly there is a significant interaction in
these interconnected columns when any of the manipulated variables are adjusted or when a disturbance
affects one of the column controlled variables. Purities in nitrogen and argon are typically very high, with 1
ppm or less impurities. The oxygen product purity ranges from 97.5 to 99.5%.

1st Compression & Pretreat

2nd Compression LP-C
Air L-Ar
Ar-C

G-O2

G-N2

Waste

Expander

Heat
Exchanger

HP-C

Subcooler

Figure 1: Flowsheet of air separation unit.

In the simplified process shown in Figure 2 the second compression stage and the sub-cooler are omitted
at the expense of lower recoveries. This is the version of the ASU that will be modeled using COCO.

Compression & Pretreat

LP-C
Air L-Ar
Ar-C

G-O2

G-N2

Waste

Expander

Heat
Exchanger

HP-C

Figure 2: Simplified air separation unit

Figure 3 shows a screenshot of the simplified ASU as set up in COCO. This flowsheet was simulated with
one tear stream: the liquid stream 22 from the argon column (Ar-C) back to the low pressure column (LP-
C). Normally, the argon column bottoms liquid flows back to the low pressure column by means of gravity.
This is simulated by using a pump that raises the pressure of the bottoms liquid, as otherwise COCO
warns us that the bottom’s liquid would flow against a pressure gradient (the argon column operates at a
lower pressure than the low pressure column). Also, note that there is a vapor and a liquid drawn from the
condenser of the high pressure column, for control purposes. This allows the high pressure column (HP-
C) condenser and the low pressure column reboiler duties to be matched by a controller. The combined
stream is fed to the top of the low pressure column (via a separator). The rich liquid bottom product of the
high pressure column is flashed. Here, the heat input is set equal to the condenser duty of the argon side
rectifier. The gaseous product streams are heated up against the inlet air flow to recover heat.

The 3 distillation columns in the COCO flowsheet are modeled using ChemSep. All other units (the heat
exchangers, valves, and flashes) are from the COUSCOUS unit operations package in COCO.

The specifications made on the various unit operations of the ASU are shown in Figure 4. As the number
of stages in ChemSep LITE is limited to 50, the obtainable purities for the liquid argon at the top of the
side rectifier and of the oxygen in the low pressure column are less than what they normally are.
Nowadays, using structured packing, it is possible to equip the argon column with enough stages to
reduce the impurities to less than 1 ppm. Note that we included heat leaks into the columns from the
environment as well as pressure drops in the columns over the column internals, which raises the
required inlet pressure for the ASU.
 T out=25oC
Fair=3.453
p=1.01325 T out=25oC

Xc,Ar=5x10-7, SV/V=0.02

Xr,Ar=0.985
p2/p1=1.9
Eff=80%
o
T cool=40 C p=1.
p=5.6 2
p=1.2
S=2.4 Ar-C
HP-C pout=1.6
Eff=80% LP-C
Qleak=0.1 Qleak=0.1
N=45
N=50
Qleak=0.1

N=50
T out=140K
Refrigeration
Using JT
p=5.7 S=0.225
Compression p=1.
3
T out=99.6K
Cooling p=1.35

N2 separation

T out=25oC
Xr,O2=0.985

O2 separation Argon
separation

Figure 3: ASU in COCO showing plant specifications

Heat integration for the ASU is shown in Figure 4. The cooling of the feed is used against the product
streams in the main heat exchanger, the LP condenser against the HP reboiler, and the condensation of
argon against the vaporization of rich liquid.

Qf=QcArC =1.4

Qc,HPC=Qr,LPC =10.4

Qcool=Qheat =24.1
Figure 4: Heat integration in ASU
The stream table for the low pressure column is shown in Figure 5

Figure 5: Screenshot of ChemSep stream table for the low pressure column in ASU.

The composition flow profiles in the low pressure column are shown in Figure 7. The internal flow rates in
the LP column must vary so as to obtain a pure gaseous nitrogen top product as well as reasonably pure
oxygen in the bottoms. At the same time the vapor draw from the LP column to the argon column must be
low enough in nitrogen to prevent buildup of N2 in the argon column, yet high enough in argon for the
argon column not to become pinched.

ChemSep ChemSep
High L/V to obtain GN2 purity

10 10

20 20
Stage

Stage

30 30

Location for sidedraw to argon

column low enough to prevent
40 40
N2 buildup in argon column
but yAr high enough

50 50
1e-006 1e-005 0.0001 0.001 0.01 0.1 1 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
Liquid mole fraction Flows (mol/s)
Nitrogen Oxygen Argon Vapor Liquid

Figure 6: Composition and flow profiles in the low pressure column in ASU.
The McCabe-Thiele diagrams displayed by ChemSep (shown in Figure 7) let the modeler quickly
evaluate the process and the feed and draw locations to/from the low pressure column.

McCabe-Thiele diagram for Nitrogen - Argon McCabe-Thiele diagram for Nitrogen - Oxygen
1 1

0.8 0.8

Y Nitrogen/(Nitrogen+Oxygen)
Y Nitrogen/(Nitrogen+Argon)

0.6 0.6

0.4 0.4

0.2 0.2

ChemSep 0 ChemSep
0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
X Nitrogen/(Nitrogen+Argon) X Nitrogen/(Nitrogen+Oxygen)

Figure 7: McCabe-Thiele diagrams for low pressure column in ASU.

Availability:

COCO is freely available from http://www.cocosimulator.org/.

ChemSep-Lite is included in the COCO installation program, and also is freely available from
http://www.chemsep.com/. The full version of ChemSep is available for educational use from the CACHE
corporation (http://www.cache.org/).

For licenses for non-educational use please write to [email protected].