What is the type of top cooler for the vapor-phase propylene column?
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The top cooling load of the propylene column in large steam cracker units is very high; what type of cooling is used for this purpose, water cooling or air cooling? Please give an introduction
Wet air cooling combined with water cooling is usually used.
We have a plant with a capacity of 70,000 tons per year, equipped with 2 wet air coolers (with a heat exchange area of 200 m2) and 2 water coolers (with a heat exchange area of 780 m2)
500,000 tons per year uses water cooling. 200,000 tons per year uses water cooling + wet air cooling.
Plate-type wet air cooling works well; it’s used in many places in this way
We have a capacity of 700,000 tons per day; there are 16 air-cooled propylene coolers. I’m not quite sure about the heat exchange area, but the diameter of the fans is approximately 3.5 meters, in addition to 4 water-cooled exchangers
I’m not sure if a plate heat exchanger can be used
Our 200,000 tons/year gas separation unit uses wet air cooling.
For our company’s production capacity of 80,000 tons per year, two ordinary water-cooled units are sufficient :handshake :handshake
Since my unit uses a heat pump system, the cooling of the propylene column top relies on the phase change of propane evaporation to absorb the heat from the propylene.
I would like to ask everyone what the advantages and disadvantages of water cooling and wet air cooling are? I have a plant with a processing capacity of 300,000 tons per year, equipped with 2 sets of 4 coolers, and I want to switch to wet air cooling.