Hydrogen recovery from ARDS unit by membranes: A simulation and economic study

Atmospheric residue desulfurization (ARDS) is widely used in the refinery to produce low-sulfur fuel oil (LSFO). The need for this fuel is increasing to meet the high demand in transportation and power generation. In ARDS, excessive amounts of hydrogen is required for the hydrotreatment process. Therefore, the purge gas of the ARDS unit usually contains significant amounts of unreacted hydrogen. In this study, a commercial membrane was integrated into one of the ARDS units at the Clean Fuels Project (CFP) of Kuwait refinery. The simulation case was built in UniSim with the development of a membrane module. Results show that the membrane can recover 92% of hydrogen with a product purity of 98 mol%. The membrane system has an attractive payback duration of four to six months.