Development of a novel processing system for efficient sour water stripping

Application of vapor recompression systems can result in enhanced energy efficiency and reduced energy requirements of distillation systems. In vapor recompression systems, temperature and dew point temperature of the top product of the column are increased through compression. By transferring heat from top to bottoms product, required boil up and reflux streams for the column are provided. In this paper, a new system is proposed for efficient stripping of sour water based on vapor recompression. Ammonia and H₂S are the contaminants of sour water. Initially, based on a certain specifications of products, a sour water stripping system is implemented. A novel processing system is then developed and simulated to reduce utility requirements. The two processing systems are economically evaluated by Aspen Economic Evaluation software. There are 89.0% and 83.7% reduction of hot and cold utility requirements for the proposed system in comparison to the base processing system. However, the new processing system requires new equipment such as compressor and corresponding mechanical work that increases its capital and operating costs in comparison to the base case. However, the results indicate that the proposed system results in reduction of 11.4% of total annual costs and 14.9% of operating costs. - Highlights: • A novel system was developed for enhancement of performance of a distillation system based on vapor recompression. • In this system, utility streams are used for providing thermal energy. • A parametric study is carried out on the proposed processing system. • Applying the proposed system resulted in reduction of energy and utility requirements and costs of the separation process. • Environmental performance of the model was investigated.