100 Most asked questions by Chemical Engineers


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Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Reboilers


Question:

            I retubed a butane splitter (iso vs. normal) reboiler recently. Twenty percent of the tubes were plugged. Yet I lost reboiler capacity with the retubed bundle. Why did we lose capacity, rather than increase capacity by twenty percent?



Answer:

            The problem is smooth tubes that lack nucleate boiling sites. This happens all the time. The old tubes were rough and pitted. Increasing the condensing pressure of the reboiler steam will only make the problem worse. One possibility is to sand blast the tubes to roughen their surface. Alternately, you can use “Linde Hi-flux,” sintered metal coating. Whichever you find most cost effective.

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