Shell Oil Comapny

Shell Internationale Research Maatschappij, B.v.

Raul Jasso Garcia, Sr

Louis Edward Stein

Richard Addison Sanborn

Arthur James Baumgartner

Karl Gregory Anderson

Danny Yuk Kwan Ngan

Richard Rodriguez

Daniel Yuk-Kwan Ngan

Raghunath Gopal Menon

Vance Jordan Grieshop

A contactor/separator is formed from a vessel; an inlet for receiving a vapor/liquid mixture; an inlet for receiving a superheated vapor; a hub located within the vessel, the hub including a plurality of vanes for imparting a centrifugal motion to the vapor/liquid mixture or the superheated vapor; an outlet in a bottom of the vessel for removing liquid; and an outlet for removing vapor from the vessel. A method is also provided for heating and separating liquid and vapor from a hydrocarbon feedstock comprising introducing a hydrocarbon feedstock into a contactor/separator: introducing a superheated vapor into the contactor/separator such that it contacts and vaporizes a portion of the feedstock within the contactor/separator; separating unvaporized feedstock from vaporized feedstock in the contactor/separator; removing the vaporized feedstock and the superheated vapor through a first outlet; and removing the unvaporized feedstock through a second outlet.

Apparatus and method for superheated vapor contacting and vaporization of feedstocks containing high boiling point and unvaporizable foulants in an olefins furnace

The invention focuses on distributing the vapor/liquid flow that emerges from an inlet nozzle across the tube sheet of an alkylation reactor or heat exchanger. The flow distributor takes the two-phase flow that emerges from the inlet nozzle, turns it towards the tubesheet and delivers a uniform mixture across the tube sheet. The flow distributor is located in the channel head of the reactor or heat exchanger. In order to dislodge the liquid film from the wall of the inlet nozzle, trip rings and angular trip tabs are located internally in the flow distributor.

Flow distributor for an alkylation reactor or heat exchanger

A quench nozzle design introduces quench oil tangentially into the quench tube which cools the hot gaseous pyrolysis products coming out of the hot radiant tubes in a pyrolysis furnace (in ethylene manufacture). Besides cooling the hot gases, the quench oil introduced into the quench tube by this nozzle design keeps the wall of the quench tube wetted, which is necessary to prevent coke deposition on the quench tube. The nozzle has one quench oil entry, which eliminates the need for any restriction orifice required to evenly distribute quench oil flows that would otherwise be required with several nozzle entries. Also, the one-nozzle oil introduction has a larger diameter than that required where more than one nozzle is employed in this service. The replacement of multiple nozzles with a single larger diameter nozzle eliminates plugging problems caused by coke solids or, coke solid precursors, present in the quench oil.

Quench nozzle

A centrifugal vapor/liquid separator separates the vapor and liquid in a flash of hydrocarbon and steam mixture, such that only the vapor stream is fed and processed further downstream. The design of the separator ensures that all partially wetted surfaces in the separator, except at the vapor outlet pipe, are well-wetted and washed by the non-vaporized liquid portion of the feed or by injection of external liquid thus ensuring that no coke deposition occurs inside the separator. The flash temperature in the separator therefore can be increased beyond the typical limit thus achieving a deeper cut into the feed and recovering a larger fraction of the feed as vapor for further downstream processing.

Wetted wall vapor/liquid separator

Growing community of inventors

Houston, TX, United States of America

Raul Jasso Garcia, Sr