Abstract: The naphtha hydrotreating unit is an important processing unit in petrochemical industry. With the treatment capacity of the units becoming larger in recent years, design and manufacture of large-scale equipment has gradually become the focus and difficulty of engineering practice. The naphtha hydrotreating feed heat exchanger is the key equipment for naphtha hydrotreating unit to reduce the feed heater load which can contribute to energy saving and emission reduction. Therefore, its design and optimization are also being updated constantly. The heat exchanger design has been changed from one pass shell with single series to two pass shells with double series and combination of other heat transfer enhancement techniques, which has achieved many successful applications in engineering practice. In this article, several solutions of naphtha hydrotreating feed heat exchanger have been analysed and compared. The optimization of solutions and recent application of heat transfer enhancement techniques have also been summarized.

Key words: naphtha hydrotreating unit, heat exchanger, enhanced heat transfer technology