Platformer Heater Efficiency Improvement and NOx Reduction

In October, 2002 we carried out a Platformer Heater Revamp Project

The 4-cell UOP Reformer Heater was originally designed for a heat duty of 181.32 MM Btu/hr, in 1970. The heater was operating at 67% thermal efficiency .Our client wanted to improve the efficiency of this heater and also reduce NOx emissions. They did not want to generate steam or preheat combustion air.

The company approached the original designers of the heater. They provided them with a conventional scheme to preheat the feed in the convection section. The scheme had four major drawbacks:

• Fluid Pressure drop went up
• Required grade mounted stack
• Required large diameter piping
• Cost was very high

Our client turned to FIS and requested us to develop an economical scheme for improving efficiency. FIS redesigned the convection sections with a “Split Flow Technology” scheme. In this scheme the feed was heated parallelly in the convection and the radiant section. The pressure drop across the heater remained the same even at higher capacity, due to this parallel processing. The additional piping used was only half the size of manifolds, and the existing stacks were reused. This scheme was almost half the cost of conventional revamp.

For NOx emissions reduction, FIS evaluated different schemes and arrived at replacing the existing burners with Ultra Low NOx burners with internal flue gas recirculation.

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