Furnaces in Refinery and Petrochemicals- an Introduction
Process furnaces:
- Process furnaces are widely used in petroleum refineries and petrochemicals. These are also called fired heaters.
- They generate heat by combustion of fuels and transfer to process fluid which is in side coil.
- The heat duty can be few Thousand MW to few Million MW.
- Process fluid in side coil may either liquid or gas .
A typical application of Furnace (Crude distillation unit)
CDU (Crude distillation Unit) Heater:
1. CDU heater is direct fired heater. It converts most of the hydrocarbon fractions in to vapour phase which are separated in distillation column.
2. No cracking or reaction takes place in this heater.
3. Flame radiation & hot flue gases of combustion transfers heat & raise temperature of process fluid.
4. Every heater is tailored / designed for its specific application.
Reaction Heaters:
1. In reaction heaters , these are filled with catalyst and perform reaction inside tubes, besides heating.
2. These are called reaction heaters.
e.g. : Hydrogen reformer
Methanol heater
Catalytic reformers
Reformer Heater:
Heater Performance objectives
• Maximize heat delivery to feed• Minimal fuel consumption• Flexibility of operation with varying fuel type/ quality and
also process flow variation in heater tubes.
• Easy to operate with safe start-up, operation and shut down.
• Minimize stack emissions (HC, Nox, Sox also hot flue gases)
• Achieve maximum thermal efficiency.
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