Hassan ElBanhawi

About this Book (Preface):-

The last half-century has seen tremendous progress in distillation technology. The introduction of high-speed computers revolutionized the design, control, and operation of distillation towers. Invention and innovation in tower internals enhanced tower capacity and efficiency beyond previously conceived limits. Gamma scans and laser-guided pyrometers have provided troubleshooters with tools of which, not-solong- ago, they would only dream. With all these advances, one would expect the
failure rate in distillation towers to be on the decline, maybe heading towards extinction as we enter the 21st century. Our recent survey of distillation failures (255) brought disappointing news: Distillation failures are not on the path to extinction. Instead, the tower failure rate is on the rise and accelerating. Our survey further showed that the rise is not because distillation is moving into new, unchartered frontiers. By far, the bulk of the failures have been repetitions of previous ones. In some cases, the literature describes 10-20 repetitions of the same failure. And for every case that is reported, there are tens, maybe hundreds, that are not. In the late 1980s, I increased tray hole areas in one distillation tower in an attempt to gain capacity. Due to vapor cross flow channeling, a mechanism unknown at the time, the debottleneck went sour and we lost 5% capacity. Half a year of extensive troubleshooting, gamma scans, and tests taught us what went wrong and how to regain
the lost capacity. We published extensively on the phenomenon and how to avoid. A decade later, I returned to investigate why another debottleneck (this time by others) went sour at the same unit. The tower I previously struggled with was replaced by a larger one, but the next tower in the sequence (almost the same hydraulics as the first) was debottlenecked... by increasing tray hole areas! It dawned on me how short a memory the process industries have. People move on, the lessons get forgotten, and the same mistakes are repeated. It took only one decade to forget. Indeed, people moved on: only one person (beside me) that experienced the 1980s debottleneck was involved in the 1990s efforts. This person actually questioned the debottleneck proposal, but was overruled by those who did not believe it will happen again.
Likewise, many experiences are repeatedly reported in the literature. Over the last two decades, there has been about one published case history per year of a tower flooding prematurely due to liquid level rising above the reboiler return nozzle, or of a kettle reboiler bottleneck due to an incorrectly compiled force balance. One would think that had we learned from the first case, all the repetitions could have been avoided. And again, for every case that is reported, there are tens, maybe hundreds that are not. Why are we failing to learn from past lessons? Mergers and cost-cuts have retired many of the experienced troubleshooters and thinly spread the others. The literature offers little to bridge the experience gap. In the era of information explosion, databases, and computerized searches, finding the appropriate information in due time has become like finding a needle in an evergrowing haystack. To locate a useful reference, one needs to click away a huge volume of wayward leads. Further, cost-cutting measures led to library closures and to curtailed circulation and availability of some prime sources of information, such as, AIChE meeting papers. The purpose of this book is pick the needles out of the haystack. The book collects lessons from past experiences and puts them in the hands of troubleshooters in a usable form. The book is made up of two parts: the first is a collection of "war stories," with the detailed problems and solutions. The second part is a database mega-table which presents summaries of all the "war stories" I managed to find in the literature. The summaries include some key distillation-related morals. For each of these, the literature reference is described fully, so readers can seek more details. Many of the case histories could be described under more than one heading, so extensive cross references have been included.