Design of Refinery Hydrogen Networks with Pressure Swing Adsorption Unit Configuration under Uncertainty: Economy and Flexibility Aspects

A refinery hydrogen network is crucial for the processing of increasingly deteriorating heavy crude oil into light clean fuels, for which pressure swing adsorption (PSA) is indispensable in improving the hydrogen utilization efficiency and reducing the system cost. This study focuses on the simultaneous design of refinery hydrogen networks with the PSA configuration under uncertainty, which is a challenging task of practical importance. A cost-sensitive method is proposed for the design of a flexible hydrogen network. An initial hydrogen network design is carried out based on the nominal operation condition requirement, followed by a network flexibility evaluation and bottleneck identification. To tackle the computational challenge imposed by the integration of the PSA model, an iterative debottleneck procedure is performed to improve the system flexibility. The proposed approach is illustrated by its application to a case study with two uncertainty scenarios. Results indicate that the proposed method can effectively improve the operational flexibility at a low cost and provide the flexible design of a hydrogen network as well as the PSA configuration.