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Alk Hale Ej Energy Efficient Refinery 1999
Alk Hale Ej Energy Efficient Refinery 1999
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: Besides the largest energy consumption in the process of sugar production, evaporation also presents
Received 24 April 2006 many opportunities of thermal integration with the remaining of the process. That occurs due to the pos-
Accepted 9 March 2008 sibility of making use of the vapor generated during the evaporation operation (vegetal vapor), as a heat-
Available online 15 March 2008
ing source, from extractions to process. Regarding the thermal integration of the multiple effect
evaporator (MEE), previous studies showed that, in general, the energy recovery is usually larger when
Keywords: extractions are practiced in the last effects of the operation. Although the results found can be used
Pinch analysis
for development of new projects, as heuristic rules, the application has been limited due to the lack of
Sugar industry
Multiple effect evaporator
understanding on the subject. In the present investigation, a study was carried out by defining equations
Process integration that can be used as a reference for thermal integration projects, including MEEs. The equations are also
helpful for elaborating a systematic way to apply pinch analysis in sugar plant with an algorithm.
Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1359-4311/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2008.03.009
516 M. Higa et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 29 (2009) 515–522
Nomenclature
be admitted. Thus, if the mass and energy balances is accom- streams in the graph (Fig. 4), the following equation can be
plished, and the consumption of the equipment (QMEE) in these written:
new conditions are determined, the equation is: X
N
Q total
evaporation ¼ iQ Mp i þ NqMEE ð7aÞ
X
N
i¼1
Q Total
H ¼ Q Pr
H DVVi þ Q MEE ð2Þ
i¼1 or:
The consumption of MEE can be defined in two terms, the first,
P
N
referring to the energy supplied to the process (Q Mp i ), and the sec- Q total
evaporation iQ Mp i
i¼1
ond, to the consumption restricted to MEE (qMEE), it can be de- q00MEE ¼ ð7bÞ
N
scribed as:
where, q00MEE : estimated value of restricted consumption of MME
X
N
(qMEE).
Q MEE ¼ Q Mp i þ qMEE ð3aÞ
i¼1
or:
X
N
qMEE ¼ Q MEE Q Mp i ð3bÞ
i¼1
Resulting in:
Q Total
H ¼ Q Pr
H þ qMEE ð6Þ Fig. 4. Grand composite curve of MEE.
518 M. Higa et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 29 (2009) 515–522
Table 1
Streams data
Stream Type Temperature (°C) Specific heat Flow rate Heat flux
(kJ/kg °C) (kg/s) (kJ/s)
Inferior Superior
1 Cold 35 105 3.91 99.2 27475
2 Cold 35 105 3.91 66.1 18317
3 Cold 98 115 3.94 81.9 5482
4 Hot 32 98 3.98 57.9 15209
5 Cold 62 62 – – 27792
excluding the equipment. In that case, for a more efficient use of 3 115 100 72 – –
the available heat, the rectangles representing MEE must be posi- 4 115 104.2 88.5 54 –
5 115 107.2 97.4 83 54
tioned entirely above or below the pinch-point, avoiding the heat
transfer across the equipment. Such measured is used to minimize
the MEE restricted consumption.
A condition that must be considered when choosing MEE con- It is possible to get a better VV use, if the MEE effect tempera-
figuration is the restriction of the total availability of vapor and tures are adjusted for meeting the demand. However input and
the necessary areas for heat transfer. It is observed that the total output maximum temperatures are necessary as restriction, be-
water evaporated, established by input and output juice concentra- cause if they are very high, formation problems, regarding color,
tion, is not completely available for the process, but it is necessary can cause production losses.
to consider that a part is used for the internal supply in each equip- Another restrictive factor, in the MEE thermal integration with
ment effect. the process, is the relation capital-costs invested in heat transfer
Table 4
MEE energy consumption process, without integration and evaporation total
Fig. 9. Process GCC, with VV extractions until the third effect (three effects).
Table 5
VV demand and offer (three effects)
Table 6
Restrict and total consumption of MEE (three effects)
00
Simulation qMEE (kW) q00MEE ðkWÞ Q Total
H ðkWÞ Q Total
H ðkWÞ Error (%)
3-1 25391 24409 92245 91263 1.1
3-2 7732 7213 74586 74067 0.7
3-3 5170 5177 61684 61677 0.01
Table 7
VV demand and offer (four effects)
Simulation Process demand for MEE effects DVVi (kW) VV energy availability in effects Q Mp i (kW) QMEE (kW)
1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
4-1 63629 – – – 63629 – – – 81866
4-2 9293 54336 – – 9293 54336 – – 68231
4-3 9292 8092 46244 – 0 0 46244 – 44544
Table 8
Table 10
Restrict and total MEE consumption (four effects)
Restricted and total consumption of MEE (five effects)
00
Simulation qMEE (kW) q00MEE ðkWÞ Q Total ðkWÞ Q Total ðkWÞ Error (%) 00
H H Simulation qMEE (kW) q00MEE ðkWÞ Q Total
H ðkWÞ Q Total
H ðkWÞ Error (%)
4-1 18237 17793 85091 84647 0.5
5-1 14270 14221 81124 81075 0.06
4-2 4602 4209 71456 71063 0.6
5-2 3217 2961 70071 69815 0.4
4-3 1700 9825 65154 65872 1.1
5-3 901 219 65948 66635 1.1
5-4 2184 669 64670 66185 2.3
5. Case study
Table 11
The present study focuses a typical sugar cane factory, process- MEE area estimate (three effects)
ing 480 tc/h (tc: ton of cane). For the application of the method, a
Simulation A1 A2 A3 ATOTAL QMEE qMEE Q Total
H
minimum temperature difference of 10 °C was chosen, in order to (m2) (m2) (m2) (m2) (KW) (kW) (kW)
limit the heat transfer. The properties of the steam process is due
3-0 1548 1675 1903 5126 45003 45003 111857
to the level of pressure going out of turbines, usually used as heat 3-1 3285 1058 1159 5502 89020 25391 92245
source, and in this case of 0.25 MPa (127.4 °C; hfg = 2.181.6 kJ/kg: 3-2 2541 2831 482 5854 71361 7732 74586
latent heat of the steam). 3-3 1959 1806 1512 5277 56394 5170 61684
The individual thermal loads of the streams were calculated, by
using temperature and flow rate juice data, whereas, for the crys-
tallization, the thermal consumption was already known (Table 1). Table 12
The schematic plant for the thermal evaluation t is illustrated in MEE area estimate (four effects)
Fig. 5. Simulation A1 A2 A3 A4 ATOTAL QMEE qMEE Q Total
H
1st stage: In the first stage of the analysis, the GCC of the project (m2) (m2) (m2) (m2) (m2) (KW) (kW) (kW)
(Fig. 6) was constructed by excluding MEE for determining the min- 4-0 1090 1622 1630 1809 4691 32104 32104 98958
imum consumption target in those conditions ðQ PrH ¼ 66854 kWÞ, 4-1 2973 1006 1040 1104 6123 81866 18237 85091
and also, for observing the VV demand profile in the MEE tempera- 4-2 2417 4012 418 409 7256 68231 4602 71456
ture levels. 4-3 1531 2404 3070 146 7151 44544 1700 65154
Table 9
VV demand and offer (five effects)
Simulation Process demand for MEE effects DVVi (kW) VV energy availability in effects Q Mp i (kW) QMEE (kW)
1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5
5-1 63629 – – – – 63629 – – – – 77899
5-2 7327 56301 – – – 7327 56301 – – – 66845
5-3 7329 6324 49978 – – 0 0 45276 – – 44371
5-4 7329 6324 6068 43910 – 0 0 0 34520 – 32336
M. Higa et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 29 (2009) 515–522 521
Table 13
MEE area estimate (five effects)
Simulation A1 (m2) A2 (m2) A3 (m2) A4 (m2) A5 (m2) ATOTAL (m2) QMEE (kW) qMEE (kW) Q Total
H (kW)
5-0 837 1784 1843 1913 2149 8526 24790 24790 91644
5-1 2807 1106 1174 1246 1322 7655 77899 14270 81124
5-2 2363 6118 447 480 463 12234 66845 3217 70071
5-3 1525 3533 4968 197 217 10440 44371 901 65948
5-4 1019 2400 2574 3324 264 9661 32336 2184 64670
Cold and hot CCs configured with three effects and using VV,
coming from the third effect, presented the best result, as shown
in Fig. 10. It can be observed that VV streams for process heating
are included, but MEE intern streams that change heat among each
other are not. As previously mentioned, the VV is the availability
for the process as multiple level utilities.
6. Conclusion
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