Oxygen Specific Power Consumption Comparison for Air Separation Units

Abstract

Technologies life cycles became shorter than before as a result of globalization and open market, which derived organizations to update their dated technologies. Without technologies updating, which based on Technological Forecasting (TF), organizations can not be dominant leaders in the open market and eventually they will lose their business. The main objective of this paper was to evaluate the air separation units by calculating the oxygen specific power, to find the most cost effective unit. The oxygen specific power used as a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) for the selected Air Separation Unit (ASU) technologies. The KPI for the updated Air Separation Unit was reviewed and the latest value selected as theoretical benchmark, which was 0.28 Kw/Nm³. At the practical part, the data collected to three air separation units ASU-31, ASU-51 and ASU-71. The results showed that the specific power gaps that used as the KPI's of ASU-31, ASU-51 and ASU-71 are 0.464 Kw/Nm³, 0.639 Kw/Nm³ and 0.631 Kw/Nm³ respectively. The results showed that these gaps can be minimized by the recommendation suggested in this paper to reduce power consumption.