Gas industry is currently one of the most growing industrial sectors in the world. World demand for hydrocarbons is forecasted to grow rapidly during this decade and the one after. The growing demand for energy has initiated another wave of research focusing on new solutions for energy efficiency optimization. Gas fractionation plants are energy intensive processes; especially from the electricity consumption point of view. Entropy concept can be a systematic tool for generating ideas for process plants operations optimization.

This paper demonstrates through a typical gas fractionation plant; the benefits obtained from optimized process operations. It shows how simple process operations changes can result in sensible increase in the in-situ electricity generation and also sensible decrease of the electricity consumption. The paper shows how the entropy generation optimization concept can be conceptually utilized to systematically generate new intuition and suggest initial operations solutions for energy saving in gas fractionation plants. It also shows how the TEM_icons™ software can be used to select hot stream's dual minimum approach temperatures systematically. A typical gas fractionation utility plant combined heat and power model (CHP) is introduced as an efficient tool to evaluate the impact of operations modifications on gas fractionation plants utility bill.

Key Words: entropy generation; process integration; gas fractionation plant; TEM_icons™ ; CHP model