Liquid expansion turbine??

[dfrobles]

Hello all,

I hope my question is placed in the right forum since it may be more adequate to ask my question in another forum.

I currently work in a chemical plant and there would be a potential to improve it, although I don´t even know if what I have thought exists.

This year we will complete our major energy saving project that could possible be the last one. After 10 projects in a small plant, the end seems close.

After this introduction, my question. We have a liquid stream at relative high pressure (25 kg/cm2), required to pass through a reactor. This stream is then expanded through a control valve, before entering a stripper column (1 kg/cm2). I was wondering if I could use this expansion energy (around 75 hp) to move a kind of liquid turbine and so, replace one of our electric motors. I know that pressure energy currently removed with the control valve is transformed into heat. But electricy is much more expensive than heat (natural gas) and, even more, the separation in the stripper is better (lower reflux) if the liquid is colder. So, two reasons why the project could be interesting.

Brief, my question is simple: does it exist a liquid turbine like that? It it does (which I currently doubt it), can you give me some references of manufacturers?
By the way, the plant is located in eastern Canada.

Best regards and thank you to all of you in advance for your help.

 

[rmw]

Google the words "Hydro turbine" and go from there.

rmw

 

[dfrobles]

Hi rmw,

Thank you for having taking the time to reply to my message.

I had already tried searching for "hydro turbine". However, the results are exclusively about hydroelectric generation, using the water potential energy to move a turbine and then generate electricity.

But I have failed in any search to find a kind of turbine to move a pump using the expansion of a liquid hydrocarbon. That is why I was asking if somebody knows if this kind of machine exists or it is not feasable. From there I could proceed with my search.

So if somebody have any info, I would be very happy if you could share it with me.

Best regards.

 

[Compositepro]

To recover the energy from liquid pressure I'm pretty sure you would have to use a piston type mechanism. The feed flow would be on one side and exit flow on the other. There is a very clever design out there for reverse osmosis of water that recovers energy from the exiting water.

 

[Zoobie]

Check out this website:

http://www.pumpengineering.com/

 

[dcasto]

here are some more

http://www.ebaraintl.com/content/view/23/59/

http://www.gouldspumps.com/04GPTurbineRecoversEnergyforIndustrialGassSupp.html

 

[rmw]

I looked in an older Byron Jackson data book about 20 years old and they listed lots of vendors but I suspect that by now many of them have gone by the way by now. I remember seeing Sulzer, Flygt, and several other prominent names for the time. They all had pump (centrifugal) versions of the hydro turbines. They were in the business of selling pumps, but packaged them with a generator to have a marketable end product. If you can find one that still makes something like this, I am sure they will be glad to sell you the pump alone for you to marry it with a pump. It is just a prime mover in this case. Good luck.

rmw