Abstract:
The increasing energy demand and growing number of pollution inspired researchers to
explore more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly process technologies. Process
integration has been used as a holistic approach to optimization and process design,
which exploits the interactions between different units in order to use resources
effectively and minimize costs. Energy saving in chemical process industries has become
a burning issue because of their massive energy consumption. In this paper, Pinch
analysis of the heat exchanger networks of Ethanol distillation at National Alcohol and
Liquor (NALF) has been done. The analysis focused on the maximizing energy efficiency
and performance of the heat exchangers used in the distillation process. Process data
extraction of the heat exchanger networks (HEN) were done to be used in pinch analysis
of the networks. Aspen Energy Analyzer software was used for this purpose. At the
targeting stage, composite and grand composite curves were generated by the software to
predetermine the retrofitted HEN design. The minimum heating and cooling requirements
of the complete network are 1.519*10
6
KJ/h and 4.231*10
6
KJ/hrespectively. Hot and
cold pinch temperature is 90ᵒC and 80ᵒC respectively. And the process pinch temperature
is 85ᵒC. The analysis indicated that a total of 3.985e+005KJ/h heat load could be saved
by retrofitting the base case HENs. Retrofitting the heat exchanger network had resulted
in savings of 13.2% in hot utility,and 7% in cold utility. Reduction in total operating cost
by percentage is 12.2 %.
Key words: Retrofitting, Aspen Energy Analyzer, Energy Efficiency , Ethanol
distillation, heat exchanger networks.