Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Fuel journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/fuel Full Length Article Progressive crude oil distillation: An energy-efficient alternative to conventional distillation process Shankar Nalinakshan a , V. Sivasubramanian b, ⁎ , Vineesh Ravi b , Aneesh Vasudevan c , M.S. Ramya Sankar b , K. Arunachalam d a Department of Electrical & Electronics Engineering, The National Institute of Engineering, Manandavadi Road, Mysuru 570008, Karnataka, India b Department of Chemical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Calicut 673601, Kerala, India c Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering, Christ Deemed to be University, Kengeri, Bangalore 560074, Karnataka, India d Process Optimization, BPCL Kochi Refinery, Ernakulam, Kerala 682302, India ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Progressive crude oil distillation True boiling point Energy saving Aspen HYSYS ABSTRACT Distillation, the major process in crude oil refineries as of now. In this work we focused the attention to energy saving with respect to an industrial crude oil distillation unit. An alternative to the conventional crude oil distillation model present in the Bharat Petroleum Corporation, Kochi Refinery is proposed and simulated. The theoretical predictions as well as the simulated results indicate that the Progressive crude oil distillation reduces the utility burden as well as increase the extraction of more valuable light components. The simulation was carried out using Aspen HYSYS V8.8.2. Different crudes are taken into account and their properties and amount of distillate are analyzed. The optimization is done in an easy manner rather than the conventional mathematical method, together with the advanced process control tools; make it profitable in the operation in real time. 1. Introduction Petroleum products are to rule our life for at least another two decades. The efficient and eco-friendly use of petroleum products is the need of the era. The majority of energy requirements is met by petro- leum products. Human energy requirements, whether be it transpor- tation or industrial requirement, need some source of liquid fuel. The problems of pollution and the use of non-renewable energy source are outweighed by the human needs. From the statistics, it is clear that switching over to any other form of energy all of a sudden is a non- existent solution. As intelligent species, to counter the ethical issues we need to optimise the current petroleum production and usage pattern. Cutting edge optimization technology would ensure minimal pol- lution and maximize the efficiency of the highly nonlinear crude oil distillation process. Multitude of individual hydrocarbons comprises the crude oil, which is differentiated based on the boiling point range. In conventional distillation column (also known as indirect sequence), both atmospheric column and vacuum column are present. The low volatile component of the crude is drawn at the bottom of the column and the high volatile components are sent to next section of the column which is done through the entire height of the column and the distillate products are obtained through the selected trays knows as “Draw off trays”. The progressive distillation technique is an application of direct sequence distillation technique. In this case the lighter components are initially separated. The way the process goes on it takes the light components only rather than the combination of light component and the heavier components. The first column is split into two separate columns. The number of column and number of tray increase which in turn increase the efficiency of distillation. In order to optimise these systems, powerful simulation and opti- misation tools need to be used. Aspen HYSYS can be used for the si- mulation and optimization of the process. The use of Aspen HYSYS changes the whole outlook on the optimisation problems. As the process is optimised, the product quality increases. The increase in product quality reduces the pollution as well as increase annual turnover of the industry. After all, any industry looks keenly towards the profit they are generating, an integrated optimisation technique is the need of the hour, where we can care for the environment without much damage to the industry. 2. Materials and methods 2.1. Crude oil types & properties A fossil fuel, petroleum is formed when large quantities of dead https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2018.11.033 Received 14 April 2018; Received in revised form 31 October 2018; Accepted 7 November 2018 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: siva@nitc.ac.in (V. Sivasubramanian). Fuel 239 (2019) 1331–1337 0016-2361/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T