What is the purpose of a phase separator?

[ris2]

At our facility there is a liquid hydrocarbon stream (mainly heavy hydrocarbons) leaves a vessel at -22degrees celsius and a flowrate of 59 cubic metres/hr. It flows through a level valve which maintains the vessel level and into a heat exchanger. Downstream of the level valve there is a phase separator installed in the piping. What is its purpose and what are the advantages of using it?

 

[saxon]

ris2, Chem/Phys 101, "all matter exists in some state/phase. As a solid, liquid, gas or combinational phase; slurry or vapor". A "phase separator" does exactly what the name implies, separates some fluid into it's component phases. Your phase separator separates a gas phase from the liquid phase or a solid phase from the liquid phase. If the phases are not separated, downstream one of the phases will adversly affect the process or equipment or the separated phase is being stripped out as product or waste.

Hope this helps.
saxon