The effect of strategic management to minimize pollution for oil refinery (the case of Tehran oil refinery)

<p>With increasing rates of pollution in major cities, the various concerns that arise from implementing an environmental project are on the rise, while large industries such as oil refining often have adverse effects on the environment. Therefore, the present study examines the effects of strategic management on pollution reduction caused by oil refining processes. This is a descriptive-case study. A practical purpose was conducted in year 2017. The realm of Tehran Oil Refinery Research, and the statistical population of this research, consisted of senior experts, group presidents, and refinery managers employed in the Tehran Oil Refinery, which numbered 35 people. This study, based on cluster sampling. The Delphi method was used to design and prepare the questionnaire. The questionnaires were used to identify and weigh the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The validity of the questionnaire was verified using Lavshe method and the reliability of the questionnaire was obtained using Cronbach's alpha coefficient, which was approved. Identification and analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats were performed based on SWOT. In the final analysis, Friedman test was used to determine the significance of each item. All information was analyzed by SPSS software version 18 and the best strategy was determined using a quantitative evaluation matrix. According to the findings of the study, the existence of a strategic plan in the refinery could reduce the pollution from oil refining processes in the Tehran refinery, occupational diseases due to the lack of appropriate protective equipment for Tehran refinery workers. Future development of the plans could reduce pollution from refinery processes in Tehran refinery and destruction of vegetation and land degradation. Strategic management and SWOT approach can be used by using internal capabilities and strengths to exploit foreign opportunities, eliminate internal weaknesses and avoid external threats.</p>

Hydrogen Integration in Refinery Using MINLP Method

Hydrogen is an important utility in the production of clean fuels as low-sulfur gasoline and diesel. The combination of low-sulfur fuel specifications and reduced production of hydrogen in catalytic reformers make hydrogen management a critical issue. In this paper a systematic approach for the retrofit design of hydrogen networks in refineries was proposed. The methodology is based upon mathematical optimization of a superstructure and maximizing the amount of hydrogen recovered across a site. The techniques account fully for pressure constraints as well as the existing equipment. The optimum placement of new equipment such as compressors and purification units is also considered. Total annual cost and fresh hydrogen required by the refinery are employed as the optimizing objects. Equations obtained from superstructure method are solved with mixed-integer nonlinear programming of the general algebraic modeling system. In this work the Tehran refinery was considered as a case study. The results of optimization show that the 28% reduction was achieved in hydrogen production of north section and this is 35.7% for south section of refinery. Also adding the new hydrogen recovery unit in hydrogen network will cause 20% reduction in total costs of north and 31.2% in south sections.

Experimental investigation of oily wastewater treatment using combined membrane systems

Investigations were carried out for purification of oily wastewater by a combined of ultrafiltration/reverse osmosis (UF/RO) processes. Laboratory-scale UF using polysulfone (PS) and polyacrylonitrile (PAN) membranes were employed with typical oily wastewater collected from API unit of Tehran refinery. The PAN membrane showed higher rejection, more permeation flux and less fouling resistance than the PS membrane. Both membranes produced permeate with oil and grease contents generally less than 5 ppm. Rejection of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and biological oxygen demand (BOD5) were found to be 65% for UF treatment. In this work, Hermia's models were used to investigate the fouling mechanism involved in UF of the oily wastewater. The results showed that the best fit to experimental data corresponds to the cake layer formation model followed by the intermediate blocking model for both the UF membranes. For further treatment of the UF permeates, RO was applied using a thin film composite polyamide membrane. The rejection of COD, BOD5 and total dissolved solid (TDS) after UF/RO treatment increased up to 98%, 98% and 95%, respectively. The results showed that the final permeate has very high quality and even better than that is currently introduced to the cooling towers in Tehran refinery.

CFD Simulation of a Methane Steam Reforming Reactor

An industrial steam reforming reactor producing hydrogen is simulated using the three-dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) technique. The fixed bed reactor is filled with a nickel oxide catalyst. Effects of operating conditions such as temperature and steam to methane ratio on the reformer performance are investigated. Simulation results show that a steam to carbon ratio of more than 4 increases in the ratio does not have a notable influence on methane yield. Moreover, it shows that methane conversion is strongly affected by reactor skin temperature and higher skin temperature leads to an increase in the methane conversion. The results were successfully validated with industrial data obtained from a hydrogen plant at a Tehran refinery.