Optimized Mixed Refrigerant System Using Advanced Vessel Economizer
Authors: Taeyun Kim, Hyunki Park, Chulwoo Kim, Youngseok Oh, Donghun Lee, Seunghyuk Kim, Joonho Min
Journal: Offshore Technology Conference
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4043/28734-MS
Abstract:
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the following features of the Advanced Vessel Economizer, derived from the principle of the Advanced Vessel Economizer and comparison with the Conventional Vessel Economizer.
-Equipment which needs a host refrigerant process.
-Maintains the characteristics of the host process.
-Improves efficiency of host process.
-Is able to be applied not only to marine, onshore and offshore, but also to industrial refrigerant processes and household appliances.
-Is able to be applied not only to the plant to be built in the future, but also to the plant that is currently being operated thanks to the simple configuration of this technology.
Two case studies were conducted for this purpose: The first case study is a comparison of the newly developed process with the commercialized process. Since the Advanced Vessel Economizer is not a process but equipment, it requires a process to be a host therefore the one of commercialized SMR process [3] has been selected and the Advanced Vessel Economizer is applied for optimization. As a result of this, the newly developed process shows that it not only improves the performance of the host process [3] by about 7.4%, but also maintains the properties of the host process.
The second case study demonstrates efficiency of the newly developed process by comparing the commercialized BOG reliquefaction processes and the offshore liquefaction processes (see table below) to show the possibility of commercialization. It is concluded that the BOG SMR process [2] was the most efficient among BOG reliquefaction processes and LNG SMR-II process [3] was the most efficient in offshore liquefaction processes. However, the newly developed process showed about 7% higher efficiency than these two processes. Also, thanks to the small number of equipment which is similar to LNG SMR process [3] and BOG SMR process [2], a low capital cost, a compact configuration in terms of layout and simple operating and control can be expected. That is, the newly developed refrigerant system using Advanced Vessel Economizer can be commercially attractive.
Through two case studies, the features of the Advanced Vessel Economizer described above are demonstrated as well as the performance of the newly developed process using the Advanced Vessel Economizer.
Keywords: Liquefaction, LNG, Economizer, Boil-off Gas, Mixed Refrigerant