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AccuratelyCalculateNitrogenRequirement
forPressurePurging
Filed in Technical Papers December 4th, 2011 @ 8:15 pm

Olaleye S Adio MEng CEng MIChemE

GECL Oil & Gas Consultant
olaleye.adio@glocalecl.com

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The start-up of process plants containing hydrocarbon feed streams are

usually preceded by creating an inert atmosphere within the system. One
of the options of creating this inert atmosphere is via pressure purging,
using nitrogen.
Pressure purging is based on using nitrogen to inert a system to low
oxygen concentration below which a flammable atmosphere is not
sustainable. To achieve this, nitrogen is used to raise the pressure of the
system (e.g vessel, heat exchanger, piping etc) from initial condition, which
is usually atmospheric, to a chosen value (x barg). With availability of
pressure control from the nitrogen header into the system, the pressure of
the system does not have to reach the nitrogen system pressure.
After pressurizing (to x barg), the system is vented back to the initial
(atmospheric) condition. This pressure-venting cycle is repeated until the
required inert condition is achieved within the system.
The following steps are used to determine number of pressure-venting
cycles and nitrogen requirement for pressure purging to achieved required
inert O2 concentration
Choose or calculate inert O2 concentration required (vol %).
Calculate number of cycles (pressure-venting) based on initial & inert
(final) oxygen concentration, initial system pressure and chosen nitrogen
pressure.

Calculate quantity of nitrogen per cycle to determine total nitrogen

required.

Step1.ChooseorcalculateinertO2concentrationrequired
(vol%)
The first stage is to determine what level of O2 is acceptable within the
system for the hydrocarbons being introduced. As a rule of thumb 9 vol%
oxygen is below the Minimum Oxygen Concentration (MOC) vol% required
for complete combustion of hydrocarbons, whilst 6 vol% is still sufficient for
incomplete combustion. As such most systems are assumed to be safe at
approximately 4 5 vol% O2.
If the required inert O2 concentration is not known, then the MOC for the
hydrocarbon stream must be calculated. A value below the MOC is then
selected as the inert O2 concentration.
The minimum oxygen concentration required by a gas can be calculated
from the equation:

Lower Flammability Limit for most hydrocarbon gases can be obtained in

literature. Flammability data for some more common gases is provided
here

Example 2 Calculate the MOC for a HC mixture; 60 vol% CH4, 30 vol

% C2H6 and 10 vol% C3H8.
Assume complete combustion 0.6CH4 + 0.3C2H6 + 0.1C3H8 +
2.75O2 > 1.5CO2 + 2.5H2O
Note: Volume fractions ratio of 6:3:1 is equal to mole fractions ratio of
6:3:1 on ideal gas molar volume basis
Methane LFL 4.5%vol in Air, Ethane LFL 3%vol in Air, Propane LFL
2.15%vol in Air

Step2.Calculatenumberofcyclesrequiredtoachieve
chosenoxygenconcentration
It can be proved analytically that the number of cycles (n) is related to the
initial and final oxygen mole fractions (yo and yn) and the initial (LOW) and
HIGH pressure used for purging by the equation

Note: The above relationship assumes pure nitrogen is used for inerting. It should also be noted
that the number of cycles is independent of the vessel volume. As such a 2m3 vessel will require
the same number of cycles as a 50m3 vessel.

Example 3 Calculate the number of cycles required to inert an

atmospheric vessel down to 2%vol O2, using a Nitrogen pressure of
2.27barg
An atmospheric vessel will be at PL = 1.01325bara and yo = 0.21; based on
Air of 79% N2 and 21% O2.
with yn = 0.02 and PH = 3.283bara,

From a design point of view, nitrogen pressure (e.g 2.27barg) can always
be chosen to ensure that number of cycle is a whole number, such as 2, 3,
4 etc. If nitrogen pressure is constrained and number of cycle is not a
whole number then cycles should be rounded up to the next whole
number, such as a 1.4 cycles should be designed as 2 cycles.

Step3.Calculatequantityofnitrogenrequiredtoachieve
chosenoxygenconcentration
To determine the total amount of nitrogen required, the nitrogen per cycle
needs to be calculated. Total nitrogen is then calculated as the number of
cycles multiplied by nitrogen/cycle.
Example 4 Calculate the total quantity of nitrogen in Nm3/hr
required to achieve the inert atmosphere in example 3 for a vessel
and associated piping of 15m3 at 25C and Nitrogen temperature of
37C
One approach that has been used to calculate the quantity of nitrogen is to
determine the quantity per cycle as

However, this approach is only a good estimation when the system and
nitrogen temperature are equal but not equal to zero degrees Celsius
(given that Normal gas volume is defined at 1.01325bara & 0C) and is
even less accurate when the nitrogen temperature is not equal to the
temperature of the system to be inerted.
A more accurate approach will be to apply a material & energy balance to
determine the number of moles of nitrogen required to achieve the
required pressure in the vessel.
To determine the quantity of nitrogen more accurately, use the following
steps

Step3.1Calculatethenumberofkmolsinthevesseland
pipingsystematinitialconditions
Using PV = nRT

Step3.2Iterativelydeterminethemixturetemperatureand
numberofmolesinthevesselathighpressureof3.283
bara
This step involves calculating the number of kmols in the vessel at the high
pressure end of the cycle. However, as the equation is dependent on
temperature in the system at the high pressure and this final temperature
is not known due to difference in Nitrogen and system pressure, the
calculation becomes iterative.
The basis of the iteration is to
3.2.1
Guess a value for final temperature

3.2.2
Calculate number of kmols in vessel based on high pressure and
(guessed) final temperature
3.2.3
Determine number of kmols N2 introduced into system (kmols in 3.2.2
initial kmols)
3.2.4
Check energy balance heat gained by initial kmols in system (0.61314
kmols) = heat lost by kmols of N2 introduced.
3.2.5
If energy balance in 3.2.4 is satisfied, then correct value of temperature
and N2 kmols is obtained. If not, repeat steps 3.2.1 to 3.2.4 with new
value of temperature.
3.2.6
Calculate Nm3 of N2 using Normal molar gas volume of 22.4
Nm3/kmol. The calculation can be set up in excel and solved for
temperature using goal seek. An iteration table is also showed below for
the case being considered here:
Data: N2 : Cp = 1.04 kJ/kg & RMM = 28kg/kmol,
Guess T (C)
kmols @
kmols of N2
3.283bara
31.00
34.00
32.50
33.25
33.19

Air: Cp= 1.006 kJ/kg K & RMM = 28.96 kg/kmol

Heat gained by Heat lost by N2
Energy
Air (kJ)
(kJ)
balance
(kJ)
1.9474
1.3343
107.18
233.13
125.95
1.9284
1.3153
160.77
114.90
-45.86
1.9379
1.3247
133.97
173.59
39.62
1.9331
1.3200
147.37
144.14
-3.23
1.9335
1.3204
146.30
146.49
0.19
Using the last line of data at temperature of 33.19C each calculation step
from 3.2.2 to 3.2.6 is detailed below

Compare the 59.16Nm3 to the nitrogen value of 68.10Nm3 determined

from the first approximate method in this example, there is a conservative
15% over estimation.
This approach thus provides an accurate way of determining the nitrogen
requirement for pressure purging.