For decades now, Atlas Copco Gas and Process rotating equipment and technologies have played an important role in creating more energy-efficient processes.
Our Compander, for example, utilizes the full energy-recovery potential for combined compression and expansion processes, merging our long-standing expertise in integral gear technology and turboexpanders into one solution.
Companders are proven in various applications across sectors and industries, such as in LNG liquefaction and the chemical industry. The employment of a Compander provides several key benefits: designed with both compressor and expander stages on a single gearbox, it features just one oil system, one control system, and one seal gas panel, providing significant CAPEX and OPEX savings, faster installation time, and a smaller footprint.
Moreover, integrally geared Compander technology offers great flexibility regarding the number of stages and stage arrangements, meaning it can adapt to process requirements. Similarly, each machine is designed to have different combinations of compressor and expander stages to fulfil the customer needs. Up to six compressor stages and two expander stages can be arranged in multiple configurations, and due to its flexible design, every stage can be designed to the optimal aerodynamic performance.
Companders installed in a HPPO process within an air-nitrogen compression-expansion
service at a plant in Belgium highlight the technology’s value in energy recovery in a petrochemical setting. HPPO is a relatively new process and is used in the industrial production of propylene oxide. At the Belgian plant, atmospheric air is compressed in four turbocompressor stages, and between each compressor stage interstage coolers re-cool the air. The compressed air is passed through several heat exchangers, where it is cooled down using the nitrogen stream passed to the energy-recovery expander as a cooling medium.
In the oxidizer column, the air reacts with an organic solution to a pre-product of hydrogen peroxide. This process increases the temperature of the remaining pressurized nitrogen, which is further increased via an additional steam-driven heater. In the expander, a large portion of the enthalpy of the hot nitrogen is converted into shaft power, while the almost-spent gas is delivered to a solvent recovery unit. Success can be measured by the fact that more than one third of the compressor coupling power was provided by the expanders. This created significant energy savings and a typically swift investment payback period for the customer: it took under two years to amortize the additional technology investment costs.
The HPPO case study is a good example of how energy-recovery systems can play an important role in improving energy efficiency in the petrochemical and chemical industries. It similarly highlights the role Atlas Copco Gas and Process Companders are playing as industry transitions to becomes less carbon intensive.
Explore more about Atlas Copco Gas and Process
Follow the below links to learn more about our technology and solutions.
