10 Pol. J. Chem. Tech., Vol. 22, No.

1, Polish
2020 Journal of Chemical Technology, 22, 1, 10—17, 10.2478/pjct-2020-0003

Air Separation Units (ASUs) Simulation Using Aspen Hysys® at Oxinor I

of Air Liquid Chile S.A Plant
C.A .Leiva1, D.A. Poblete1, T.L. Aguilera1, C.A. Acuña2, F.J. Quintero3
1
Department of Chemical Engineering, Universidad Católica del Norte, 1270709, Antofagasta, Chile
2
Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María, 2390123,
Valparaíso, Chile
3
Air Liquide Chile, S.A., Avenida Kennedy 5454, Oficina 801, Vitacura, Santiago, Chile
*
Corresponding authors: e-mail: [email protected]

The method used to extract copper from its ores depends on the nature of the ore. The main process currently
to separate copper from sulphide ores is the smelting process. The concentrated ore is heated strongly with silicon
dioxide (silica), calcium carbonate and oxygen enriched air in a furnace or series of furnaces which is carried out
using the injection of the air for oxidation the Fe and Si present in the raw material. Oxygen can be produced
using several different methods. One of these methods is Air separation process, which separates atmospheric air
into its primary components, typically nitrogen and oxygen, and sometimes also argon and other rare inert gases
by cryogenic distillation. In this paper, simulation of air separation units (ASUs) was studied using Aspen Hysys®.
The obtained simulation and model was validated with the operational data from the Oxinor I of Air Liquide
S.A Plant. The ASU was divided into subsystems to perform the simulations. Each subsystem was validated sepa-
rately and later on integrated into a single simulation. An absolute error of 1% and 1.5% was achieved between
the simulated and observed the process variables(s). This indicated that Aspen Hysys® has the thermodynamic
packages and required tools to perform simulations in cryogenic processes at industrial scale.

Keywords: Simulation, Oxygen plant, Aspen Hysys, Air separation units (ASUs), Air Liquide S.A.

INTRODUCTION cycles, within which ASU systems are an essential part

of the process8. Up to now the published work focused
The main process to separate copper sulphides from
on qualitative changes in the gas processes for energy
ferrous metals is the copper smelting process, which is
production9. Other investigations have been carried
carried out by injecting pure oxygen into the minerals
out simulations in specific equipment such as cryogenic
in order to oxidize the Fe and Si present in the raw
distillation columns or pumps of subcooled fluids10 some
material. Only in Chile between 2010 and 2016, 14531.8
researchers have used Aspen Hysys to simulate cryogenic
kMT of ore were processed at the smelter plants1. Taking
CO2 removal plants11.
into account that each ton of material requires 42 m3
In this paper, simulation of air separation units (ASUs)
of Oxygen, it can be seen that the need for this supply
was studied using Aspen Hysys®. The obtained simulation
is of high value for foundry companies.
and model was validated with the operational data from
Due to the importance of the oxygen supply in cop-
the Oxinor I of Air Liquide S.A Plant. The aim of this
per sulphide treatment plants, an emphasis is needed
work is to provide Airliquide Chile S.A. a validated tool
on the production of this raw material. Obtaining O2 is
to simulate the operation variables for the purpose of
performed in several ways, some of them are absorp-
process optimization.
tion of gases using zeolite or other synthetics materials
,chemicals reactions and the cryogenic process, the main Air separation process
one being a unit called ASU (Air Separation Unit) be-
The Cryogenic Air separation process involves several
cause of its capability to produce large volumes of high
main and a few secondary stages. First, the air must
purity products, it uses cryogenic processes to obtain
be filtered so that impurities such as dust or other
pure oxygen in liquid or in its gaseous form2
contaminants are eliminated. Once the air is filtered
There has been investigation to optimize the processes
the process begins with the gas compression. For this,
of an ASU with the purpose of determining its use
the fluid must pass through a three-stage turbocharger.
in power generation systems3. The complexity of the
Tube & Shell heat exchangers are then used to make
cryogenic processes, due to its low temperatures, makes
the compression adiabatic.
the simulation process difficult, which is why simulation
After compression the washing stage begins, which is to
software is used to help with this task. The software that
clean the air from contaminants that may exist, such as
has been used and tested by different researchers is As-
carbon dioxide and water vapor this is done by cooling
pen Hysys®4. Other software used in this area is gProm5.
the compress air with cool water in a washing tower
Different approaches have been taken to simulation of
then the humid air pass through a fixed bed column that
oxygen plants and their energy efficiency. Studies have
adsorb the CO2 and water vapour. After cleaning the
been carried out emphasizing the separation process by
gases, the stream is separated into two streams, one of
modifying variables or stages of the process6. Others have
them, which we call MP (medium pressure), goes directly
performed simulations in complete plants, optimizing
to the next stage called cold box, the rest of the fluid
electricity consumption and Oxygen production7.
goes through a second compression, which increases the
Many researchers have used the Aspen Hysys tool to
gas pressure using a two-stage turbocharger and a tube
simulate power generation plants through integrated gas
 Pol. J. Chem. Tech., Vol. 22, No. 1, 2020 11

& shell heat exchanger. The resulting stream, called HP lations. Aspen Hysys® developed by Aspen Technology
(High Pressure), enters the cold box stage. has a library of more than ten thousand components
In the cold box stage we have the heart of all ASU added to a library of thermodynamic equations that
processes which consist of several items of equipment includes more than ten equations of state each with
such as heat exchangers, vaporizers, pumps and the their corresponding models and parameters. Specializes
distillation columns, both HP and MP. in steady-state analysis. The validations were performed
Figure 1 shows a block diagram exemplifying the using the data obtained from the Oxinor I operation
process of an ASU. There are two distillation columns from Air Liquide S.A. As a thermodynamic package,
one working at high pressure(HP) and one working the Equilibrium model from Peng-Robinson modified
at medium pressure(MP), in the HP column the air is by Stryjek and Vera12 was used.
separated into a stream of pure nitrogen at the top and
at the bottom an impure oxygen stream, the MP column Methodology
has the purpose of purify the O2 stream. As a methodology, it was decided to address the
problem of the simulation of an ASU plant in the form
SOFTWARE AND METHODS of its internal operations by dividing the plant into the
following subsystems. This decision was made because
Software the processes and operations that involve an ASU are
so complex that to try a unique simulation where it
As software, the Aspen Hysys® Software acquired by involves the whole process would be chaotic and could
the Universidad Católica del Norte, Antofagasta Chile, as not be appreciated in detail the errors and deviations in
shown in the Figure 2 , was used to carry out the simu-

Figure 1. A block diagram of demonstrating the ASU process

Figure 2. Aspen Hysys® owned by the Universidad Católica del Norte

12 Pol. J. Chem. Tech., Vol. 22, No. 1, 2020

the variables of process. If they are simulated separately Water cooling plant
you can ensure that each stage works on its own and As mentioned above, the tube and shell heat exchan-
then simulate the entire process in one step: gers use water to cool the various gases, this is why the
– Compression; Oxinor I plant has two water circulation systems called
– Washed; Closed and Open Circuit. Both circuits are connected
– Cold box; and by plate heat exchangers.
– Water cooling plant. The open circuit consists of a cooling tower, a pump
These divisions were validated independently with and the plate exchanger. The cooling tower is a device
operational data. Once the parts were simulated and that uses atmospheric air to cool the water by direct
validated we proceeded to join the stages to form the contact and uses a fan system to circulate the air through
process. The plant was validated with the same data. the water, which is cooled by saturation of the air. The
purpose of this system is to cool the water that can be
Stages
used in the wash tower.
The closed circuit is composed of a pump, a plate heat
Compression
exchanger and an accumulator. This circuit is intended
The compression consisted of two separate phases, to provide cooling water to the heat exchangers during
a primary compression performed by a three-stage turbo the compression stages. Each circuit has two A and B
compressor and a secondary compression performed by connections, which are two different heat exchangers.
a two-stage turbo compressor. The first compression
occurs at the introduction of the atmospheric air and Validation methodology
the second compression after adsorption stage. For the verification of the compression stages, it was
decided to adjust the adiabatic efficiencies of each step
Primary compression
and the heat transfer coefficients of the heat exchangers.
This first compression consists of a three-stage turbo As input variables, the value of temperature, pressure
compressor already mentioned, after each stage there and flow sensors from the plant were taken into the
are tube and shell heat exchangers that cool the air input of each compression and cooling step. The tem-
coming out of the compression sections in counter peratures and pressures were compared to the output
flow with water. The purpose of this stage is to raise of each equipment.
the atmospheric air pressure to the working pressures For the washing step, it was decided that the best
of the cryogenic distillation zones. There is a filter at way to adjust the simulation to the plant data would
the opening of the compressor to prevent the ingress of be to calculate the pressure losses in both the cooling
particulate material. column and the adsorber, in addition the pump design
data was used to obtain the characteristics curves of
Secondary compression
the pumps. The pressures obtained with the plant data
The second compression uses two compression sta- were compared in the cooling columns, adsorber and
ges and a shell and tube heat exchanger to compress centrifugal pumps.
and cool a portion of the air from the washing step in For the validation of the turbine compressor system,
order to achieve the pressure required to operate the the adiabatic efficiencies of both the compressor and
distillation columns. the turbine and the heat transfer coefficient of the
Washing step heat exchanger were used, the output values were used
to compare the simulation results with the plant data.
This stage consists of two main parts, which are gas Based on the information that was obtained from the
cooling and an adsorption of impurities. The removal cold box, it was decided to maintain certain temperatu-
of water and CO2 present as impurity is carried out in res, that are constant in the process, and to modify the
adsorption columns. The gases are cooled by backwashing inflow and production flows of the distillation columns
in direct contact with cold water. in order to be able to compare the quality of gaseous
Cold Box oxygen upon exit.
For the validation of the water cooling plant it was
The process of the cold box has the purpose of pro-
decided to determine the outlet temperatures of the
ducing products desired by the needs of the market.
plate exchangers depending on the input temperatures of
This stage consists of plate heat exchangers, HP and LP
both closed and open circuits. For the cooling tower of
distillation towers, auxiliary vaporizers, and a booster /
air, the temperature at exit was found to be a function
turbine system.
of the one at entrance.
Booster /turbine system
The compressor/turbine is equipment that provides the RESULTS
cooling required for the separation of air to occur. The
compressor compresses the air and later in the turbine, Compression results
the air is expanded causing it to cool and thus resulting From the results of the compression the temperatu-
in the normal operating conditions necessary to compen- res obtained by the simulator and the temperatures of
sate for the cold losses of the system and to provide the the plant sensors were analyzed (T1: input to second
cooling power for the generation of liquid products. The compression stage and T2: outlet of compression stage).
equipment has a tube and shell heat exchanger. The flowsheet used to simulate this stage is shown on
 Pol. J. Chem. Tech., Vol. 22, No. 1, 2020 13

Figure 3. Compression stage simulation flow sheet

Hysys® doesn’t have an air/solid separation module

a component splitter was used instead, separating the
air stream and it is component (N2, O2 and Argon) of
the impurities such as CO2 and water vapor.
For pressures losses the following equations were
obtained:
Column N114
(1)
Adsorber N18
(2)
Pump N113
(3)
Figure 4. Linear regression of compression stage Pump N115
(4)
Figure 3. A linear regression was made to the data to
see the difference in the simulated and the real values. Where:
The results are plotted in Figure 4. A regression index Poutput – Ouput pressure [Kpa]
of 0.9979 was obtained. As it can be seen in the Figure Pinput – Input pressure [Kpa]
4 the data simulated a high concordance with the data Air flow – Input air flow in each equipment [Nm3/h]
from the plant sensors. H – Head [m]
Q – Water flow [m3/h]
Washing stage results
From the washing step, the outlet pressures of the Cold box
absorption and wash towers were taken and compared In the cold box stage, shown on Figure 7, the results of
with the data from the plant sensors. The simulation the O2 flow (F1) were obtained at the exit of this stage
flowsheet used to run the programs is show on Figure 5. and de temperature inlet to the plate exchange. The
The results are shown in Figure 6. A regression index of plant data were used to validate the obtained data. The
0.9648 was obtained (P1). If we look close in the Figure results were plotted Figure 8 (F1 and T3). Regression
6 it can be seen that the data obtain from the simulator indices 0.9475 and 0.8782 respectively were obtained.
and the plant data has a high similarity however it can Figure 8 shows a lower regression index, but taking into
still be improve changing some parameters. As Aspen account the complexity and quantity of equipment and
14 Pol. J. Chem. Tech., Vol. 22, No. 1, 2020

Figure 5. Washing stage simulation flow sheet

a certainty of 95% that the error is between 1% and

1.5% comparing the value delivered by the simulator and
the value of the sensor. The error distribution chart is
shown on the Figure 11.

DISCUSSIONS
Observing the results of the simulated stages of the
process, we can see that the regression coefficients are
mostly between 0.9 and 0.95, which allows us to conci-
sely state that the values used in the simulation are in
line with the reality of the plant allowing achievement
of outputs near the process values.
Certain stages such as the cold box, specifically the
Figure 6. Linear regression of washing stage flow of O2 must be looked at more extensively since its
regression index is less than 0.9. This may be because
flows within the system it can be said that the index is the flow of O2 depends on some variables that were
sufficiently valid to consider this stage validated with the assumed constant and or were not taken into account.
simulation data in contrast to the values Plant To overcome this error and to reach more acceptable
regression values it is necessary to perform more simu-
Water Cooling plant lations and combinations of variables.
For the water plant, we took the data from two circuits From the error distribution and doing a hypothesis test
plant A and B. The output temperatures of closed circuits on the errors it can be stated that with a 95% certainty
A, closed B, open A and open B were simulated (T4, the absolute error of the data is between a 1 and 1.5%
T5, T6 and T7). The simulation flow sheet is shown on of error comparing the data from the software and the
Figure 9. The results are plotted in Figure 10. It can plant values, this is comparable to other studies9 where
be observed that circuit A has a higher regression index absolute errors less than 5% were achieved using Aspen
than circuit B. This can be due to many reasons, such Hysys® software in natural gas plants.
as a discrepancy of data in the sensors of both circuits, As in other investigations4, it was possible to simulate
the difference in the maintenance of both circuits, and the cryogenic distillation stage, finding in our simula-
the use that is given to each system. tion a linear regression adjustment above 0.85. We also
simulated a compression system finding a regression
Error analysis adjustment of 0.99. In other investigations we found
In order to establish the errors in the different valida- absolute errors of between 1.5% and 1.3%8
tions, a variance analysis was performed on the absolute
errors of the studied and validated variables, finding with
 Pol. J. Chem. Tech., Vol. 22, No. 1, 2020 15

Figure 7. Cold Box simulation flow sheet

Figure 8. Cold box results compression (a), and Cold box O2 flow results (b)

CONCLUSION validation of parts each system, and the entire productive

process, which consist of the following stages:
Using operational data, a simulator was made for the
– Compression;
Oxinor plant with the Aspen Hysys® software tool.
– Washed;
Validating the simulator with historical data of the
– Second compression;
plant shows that the errors between the process variables
– Cold box;
and the values delivered by it have values that fluctuates
– Compressor/turbine system; and
between 1% and 1.5%.
– Water cooling plant.
The use of this software allowed consideration of the
Finally, the simulated tool was validated with the
main stages of the process, which allowed evaluation and
data of the Oxinor I plant, which allows it to be used
16 Pol. J. Chem. Tech., Vol. 22, No. 1, 2020

Figure 9. Water cooling plant simulation flow sheet

Figure 10. Water cooling plant results for outlet current circuit a and b

as a base tool to study any operational or equipment

changes in this production process.
The simulated plant might also help with future works
on the Air Liquide Chile S.A Oxinor I plant using the
software Aspen Hysys® without wasting time and efforts
on validating the software on the plant.
The authors of this paper consider the following topic
for future research is: Process optimization of the oxynor
cryogenics plant using the simulation developed in this work.

FUNDING
This research received no external funding

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Figure 11. Error distribution chart
We would like to thank the company Air Liquide
S.A for facilitating access to the plant data and all the
required information. The authors wish to thank espe-
cially to Mr. Andrés Roque for his contributions to the
project research.
 Pol. J. Chem. Tech., Vol. 22, No. 1, 2020 17

APPENDIX integrated gasification combined cycle power plants. Energy.

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Gas. Sci. Eng. 26, 367–81. DOI: 10.1016/j.jngse.2015.06.030.
10. Jieyu, Z., Yanzhong, L., Guangpeng, L. & Biao, S. (2015).
Simulation of a Novel Single-column Cryogenic Air Separation
Process Using LNG Cold Energy. Phys. Procedia. 67, 116–22.
DOI: 10.1016/j.phpro.2015.06.021.
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capture in natural gas. Energy Procedia. 1, 697–706. DOI:
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12. Proust, P. & Vera, J.H. (1989). PRSV: The stryjek & vera
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Table 3. LOX production design data

Table 4. Cooling water interchange design data

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