Flue gas heat recovery systems
for Oil Refineries
Risk of corrosion limits you to recover more heat from flue gas. With polymer heat exchangers you can recover additional heat below the acid dew point without corrosion issues.
Your fired heater is losing 10% - 20% of its energy via the stack
What is keeping you from recovering this energy?

Identifying a robust solution
Finding a technically feasible solution to recover and reuse waste heat is a challenge.

Corrosive and fouling flue gases

Business case
The payback time of waste heat recovery options must be less than 5 years.
Since 10 years we design and deliver heat recovery systems for Oil Refineries to reduce their carbon footprint
Save up to 10% energy on your thermal process
Recover heat - that is now lost - from flue gas.
- Heat recovery below the Acid Dew Point
- Improve thermal efficiency to >95%
- 3 - 5 year payback time
- Repeatable on most fired heaters
Your thermal process has waste heat recovery potential
Select your thermal process to find out how
Recover more heat on fired heaters
Fired heaters are used throughout the refinery to heat product streams. Additional heat recovered from flue gas is used for combustion air preheating.
Recover more heat on steam boilers
The way our heat recovery system works
Capture waste heat
When hot flue gas leaves the stack it still contains a significant amount of energy. Our heat recovery system captures this heat from fired heaters or boilers.
Preheat combustion air or water
Cold combustion air, make-up water or boiler feed water is heated with the recovered waste heat. This directly reduces the consumption of fossil fuels. When your installation is duty limited, pre heating combustion air may increase the capacity.
Our heat recovery systems for Oil Refineries
Polymer Air Preheater
Warm up combustion air by extracting heat from flue gas. The air preheater is corrosion resistant, easy to maintain and to clean.
Stainless steel or Polymer Economiser
Warm up boiler feed water or make-up water with waste heat from flue gases. The economiser is corrosion resistant and easy to maintain and to clean.
A 100,000 bbl/day refinery can save an additional 14 MW thermal energy and reduce 26,000 ton of CO2 every year
Refinery fired heater - CDU
4% increase of furnace efficiency
To reduce its carbon footprint, a refinery is focussing on waste heat recovery. A lot of heat is lost via the stack with the potentially corrosive flue gas. The customer wants to recover part of this heat.
So far no heat recovery was performed because of the corrosive nature of the flue gas. When the flue gas is cooled, sulphuric acid is formed and corrosion occurs inside the heat recovery system. The HeatMatrix polymer APH was selected because it can handle the formed sulphuric acid and makes additional heat recovery possible.
After the HeatMatrix polymer APH was installed, furnace efficiency increased with 4%. Corrosion rates downstream of the heat recovery system remained below 0.1 mm/year.
Your path to lower CO2 emissions, energy consumption and costs

Technical assessment
Our process engineers assess the technical feasibility of additional heat recovery on your process. The potential reduction in CO2 emissions and energy costs are determined.

Heat exchanger design and Business Case
A proposal is made that shows all technical details and an economic assessment with payback time. You have everything you need for approval to start a feasibility study.
Feasibility study
FAQ's
How is corrosion prevented when flue gas is cooled so deep?
What is the impact of the Polymer air preheater on the pressure drop?
The pressure drop will be increased with approximately 4-8 mbar on both the air side and the flue gas side of the exhanger.
How much plot space does a heat exchanger require?
Space is often a constraint in refineries. The footprint of the heat exchangers can be adjusted based on available space. Because of their low weight, polymer air preheaters of HeatMatrix can easily be put at elevation.
Technical Assessment of your situation
Our process engineers assess the technical feasibility of additional heat recovery on your process. The potential reduction in CO2 emissions, energy consumption and costs are determined.
- Analysis of your thermal process
- Minimal input data required
- Business case on your savings potential
