Design and control of a cryogenic multi-stage compression refrigeration process

This paper presents a quantitative design of a three-stage compression refrigeration process that uses methane, ethylene and propylene as the working refrigerant fluids in the three stages. Heat is removed in the condenser of a cryogenic distillation column separating carbon monoxide and methane. The bubble-point temperature of carbon monoxide at 13.9 bar is −158 °C. The distillation column condenser is cooled by evaporating boiling liquid methane at −163 °C. The second stage has an evaporator with boiling ethylene at −106.7 °C. The final stage has an evaporator with boiling propylene at −25.9 °C. An effective plantwide control structure is developed and tested.