Conceptual approach for simultaneous targeting and design of refinery desulfurization solvent network

With the increasing supply of sour crude oil and rising demand of low-sulfur fuel oil products, desulfurization becomes important in refineries, leading to notable energy cost for desulfurization solvent regeneration. This paper presents the integration of desulfurization solvent network and develops a systematic targeting and design method in order to improve the overall solvent utilization. First, the desulfurization solvent sink/source and desulfurization solvent network are defined referring to the characteristics of desulfurization units. Next, a novel problem table method is developed to identify the minimum fresh solvent consumption and design the desulfurization solvent network simultaneously. A case study is conducted to provide quantitative insights in designing desulfurization solvent network and saving fresh desulfurization solvent. Such integration reduces the fresh solvent consumption by 25% and has a good practicability.