I saw hundreds of such reboilers in Amoco's many refineries. I never stopped to think what caused the liquid to circulate through the reboilers. I never thought about it, even though the reboiler feed nozzle on the tower was below the vapor return nozzle. Now, with my fish tank experience as a guide, I was able to understand:
• The reboiler shell is like the fish tank.
• The reboiler vapor is like the air.
• The reboiler return pipe is like the riser tube.
• The distillation tower is like the filter.
Every Saturday I run along the levee bordering the Mississippi River in New Orleans. Huge sand hills lie between the levee and the river. The sand has been dredged from the river bed by the Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps uses 30-in diameter flexible hoses to suck the sand from the river bed. Maybe the concept of "sand sucking"
is not the most elegant terminology? To be precise, a barge floating on the river, equipped with an air compressor discharges air to the bottom of the 30-in hose, 140 ft below the surface. The reduced density inside the hose, due to the compressed air, creates an area of low pressure at the bottom of the hose. The water and sand are then drawn into the area of low pressure and up the hose, which empties the sand and water into a basin along the riverbank. You can see a geyser of water and sand spurting up in these sand basins. I made a mini-dredge like that to suck the sand out of my pool sand filter. It worked rather well, until the little air compressor motor began smoking.
1.4 Reducing Hydrocarbon Partial Pressure
One day my mother served me a bowl of mushroom soup which I didn't want to eat. I disliked mushroom soup but I was a practical child. It would serve no purpose to tell my mother I hated the taste of mushrooms because she would say, "I've spent all day cooking. You're not going outside till you eat that soup." So I said, "Mom, the soup is too hot. I'll burn my tongue." And she said, "Norman, blow across the soup to cool it off." While I knew this would cool the soup, I really didn't like mushrooms. So I responded, "Mom, why will blowing across the soup cool it off. How does that work?"
Excerpt from "guide to process equipment"
• The reboiler shell is like the fish tank.
• The reboiler vapor is like the air.
• The reboiler return pipe is like the riser tube.
• The distillation tower is like the filter.
Every Saturday I run along the levee bordering the Mississippi River in New Orleans. Huge sand hills lie between the levee and the river. The sand has been dredged from the river bed by the Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps uses 30-in diameter flexible hoses to suck the sand from the river bed. Maybe the concept of "sand sucking"
is not the most elegant terminology? To be precise, a barge floating on the river, equipped with an air compressor discharges air to the bottom of the 30-in hose, 140 ft below the surface. The reduced density inside the hose, due to the compressed air, creates an area of low pressure at the bottom of the hose. The water and sand are then drawn into the area of low pressure and up the hose, which empties the sand and water into a basin along the riverbank. You can see a geyser of water and sand spurting up in these sand basins. I made a mini-dredge like that to suck the sand out of my pool sand filter. It worked rather well, until the little air compressor motor began smoking.
1.4 Reducing Hydrocarbon Partial Pressure
One day my mother served me a bowl of mushroom soup which I didn't want to eat. I disliked mushroom soup but I was a practical child. It would serve no purpose to tell my mother I hated the taste of mushrooms because she would say, "I've spent all day cooking. You're not going outside till you eat that soup." So I said, "Mom, the soup is too hot. I'll burn my tongue." And she said, "Norman, blow across the soup to cool it off." While I knew this would cool the soup, I really didn't like mushrooms. So I responded, "Mom, why will blowing across the soup cool it off. How does that work?"
Excerpt from "guide to process equipment"
