Final Stages NGL Separation

Fractionation Unit Overview3 Towers: Deethanized,

Depropanizer, and Debutanizer

Deethanizer NGL’s are fed to this unit from cryogenic unit.  

• Remember natural gas liquids contains an ethane, propane, butane all mixture. 

The first column is the deethanizer.  • Why? Because ethane will be removed from the other

products and will exit out the top of this tower. • How? NGL’s enter the deethanizer tower where they will be

heated up by a reboiler just enough to vaporize ethane.  The reboiler transfers heat via steam or hot oil;

dependant on the plant configuration.  (Usually hot oil) • Reboiler heats the NGL’s just enough to vaporize ethane

allowing it to travel up the tower. The ethane vapor leaves the top of this tower to a condenser.

Finished Ethane Product The condenser uses cooling water for the

removal of heat from the ethane causing it to condense.

Liquid ethane flows to the reflux drum.  Where some ethane is sent back to the column as reflux while some leaves the system as product. 

Again, the purpose of reflux is to improve product purity by prohibiting other products from leaving with the ethane.

Depropanizer What doesn’t get vaporized is going to travel

out of the bottom of the deethanizer tower.  • Propane and Butane are still present in the NGL

stream This botttom feed travels to the

Depropanizer vessel.  • The depropanizer operates in the same manner as

the previous tower. (higher temperature)• A reboiler supplies just enough heat to vaporize

propane from the NGL mixture.  Propane escapes from the top as vapor and

travels to an Air Cooled heat exchanger.

Finished Propane Product The Air Cooled heat exchanger is another

form of a condenser used to liquefy propane vapors into a liquid state.

This air cooled heat exchanger utelizes a fan to move air across the tubes cooling the propane vapors and allowing them to condense.

The condensed vapors (liquid) flow to a reflux drum where some product is sent back to depropanizer as reflux while some is sent out as product.

Debutanizer The remaining NGL stream leaving the

bottom of the Depropanizer contains butane and natural gasoline which will be separated by the Debutanizer tower.  • The butane leaves the top of this column and natural

gasoline exits the bottom.  • The NGL steam is heated in the debutanizer by a

reboiler.• Butane vaporizes and travels up and out the top of

this column.  Butanes vapors enter an air cooled heat

exchanger.

Finished Butane Product This heat exchanger condenses the butane;

causing it to liquefy. • The liquid butane product flows to the reflux drum

where some product can sent back to the column as reflux and some can be sent out of the system as product. 

Butane product can be further refined in some plants.• It can be sold as butane product or it can be to a

butane splitter tower or deisobutanizer.• Which separates butane from isobutene in a similar

fasion. 

Natural Gasoline The Bottom’s product of the debutanizer

is natural gasoline.• Natural Gasoline is a product of this unit as

well.    Our discussion today has centered

around the process of fractionation. • Remember: Fractionation columns are very

similar to distillation towers. The key difference being that the vaporization points within a fraction tower are much tighter than the vaporization points in a distillation tower. 

Reminder The towers on this page are the

Dethanizer, Depropanizer and Debutanizer.  The Dethanizer has ethane leaving the top, the Depropanizer has propane going exiting the top and the Debutanizer has butane leaving the top.  So, each tower is named for what product is exiting it as an overhead product and not a bottoms product.