Pinch Technology - Introduction

Whenever the design of a system is considered, limits exist that constrain the design.
Example 1: Distillation of two components that requires 400 equilibrium stages and a
tower with a diameter of 20 m would not be attempted, because the construction of such a
tower would be impossible with current techniques. A combination of towers in series and
parallel might be considered but would be very expensive. These mechanical limitations
are often a result of a constraint in the process design. The example of the distillation
column given is a result of the difficulty in separating two components with similar
volatility.
Example 2: When designing heat exchangers and other unit operations, limitations
imposed by the first and second laws of thermodynamics constrain what can be done with
such equipment. For example, in a heat exchanger, a close approach between hot and cold
streams requires a large heat transfer area. Likewise, in a distillation column, as the reflux
ratio approaches the minimum value for a given separation, the number of equilibrium
stages becomes very large. Whenever the driving forces for heat or mass exchange are
small, the equipment needed for transfer becomes large and it is said that the design has a
pinch. When considering systems of many heat- or mass-exchange devices (called
exchanger networks), there will exist somewhere in the system a point where the driving
force for energy or mass exchange is a minimum. This represents a pinch or pinch point.
The successful design of these networks involves defining where the pinch exists and using
the information at the pinch point to design the whole network. This design process is
designed as pinch technology. The concepts of pinch technology can be applied to a wide
variety of problems in heat and mass transfer.
The approach followed consists of establishing an algorithm for designing a heat- (mass-)
exchanger network that consumes the minimum amount of utilities and requires the
minimum number of exchangers (MUMNE).
The following figures show two configurations for the DME reactor feed and heat
exchange system. In both cases the feed enters from the left at 154°C; it is heated to 250°C
prior to being fed into the adiabatic catalytic reactor, R-201. The same amount of reaction
takes place in both configurations, and the reactor effluent is then cooled to 100°C prior to
entering the separation section of the process. The only difference between the two systems
is the way in which the heat exchange takes place. In the first figure, the feed is heated with
high-pressure steam and the effluent is cooled with cooling water. However, this does not
make good economic sense. Because heat is generated in the reactor, it would make better
sense to use this heat from the reaction to heat the reactor feed. This is what is done in
second figure. The reactor effluent is partially cooled by exchanging heat with the cool,
incoming feed. This heat integration saves money in two ways: (1) The cooling water
utility is reduced and the high-pressure steam is eliminated, and (2) heat exchanger E-203
is smaller because the duty is reduced, and E-202 is also smaller due to the fact that hps
condenses at 254°C, which means the ΔT driving force in the exchanger is very small and
the area is large.
a. With heat integration
 b. Without heat integration

The general algorithm is presented to give the minimum number of exchangers requiring
the minimum utility requirements for a given minimum approach temperature. The
algorithm to solve the minimum utility (MUMNE) problem consists of the following steps.

1. Choose a minimum approach temperature.

2. Construct a temperature interval diagram.
3. Construct a cascade diagram, and determine the minimum utility requirements and
the pinch temperatures.
4. Calculate the minimum number of heat exchangers above and below the pinch.
5. Construct the heat-exchanger network.
It is important to remember that the object of this exercise is to obtain a heat-exchanger
network that exchanges the minimum amount of energy between the process streams and
the utilities and uses the minimum number of heat exchangers to accomplish this. This
network is almost never the optimum economic design. However, it does represent a good
starting point for further study and optimization.
Example 1
In a process, there are a total of six process streams that require heating or cooling. These
are listed below along with their thermal and flow data. A stream is referred to as “hot” if
it requires cooling, and “cold” if it requires heating. The temperature of the stream is not
used to define whether it is “hot” or “cold.”

For this system, design the MUMNE network.

Step 1: Choose a Minimum Approach Temperature. This represents the smallest
temperature difference that two streams leaving or entering a heat exchanger can have.
Typical values are from 5°C to 20°C. The value 10°C is chosen for this problem.

Step 2: Construct a Temperature Interval Diagram. In a temperature interval diagram,

all process streams are represented by a vertical line, using the convention that hot streams
that require cooling are drawn on the left-hand side and cool streams requiring heating are
drawn on the right. The left- and righthand axes are shifted by the minimum temperature
difference chosen for the problem, with the right-hand side being shifted down compared
with the left. In this figure, each process stream is represented by a vertical line with an
arrow at the end indicating the direction of temperature change. Horizontal lines are then
drawn through the ends of the lines and divide the diagram into temperature intervals. For
our problem, there are four temperature intervals. The net amount of available energy from
all the streams in a given temperature interval is given in the right-hand column. The
convention of (+) for excess energy and (–) for energy deficit is used. Thus, if the right-
hand column contains a positive number for a given temperature interval, this implies that
there is more than enough energy in the hot streams to heat the cold streams in that
temperature interval. In addition, because the cold streams have been shifted down by the
minimum approach temperature, energy can flow from left to right within a given
temperature interval without violating the second law of thermodynamics. The summation
of the numbers in the right-hand column is the net deficit or surplus enthalpy for all the
streams, which for this example is –50 kW.
Step 3: Construct a Cascade Diagram.
The next step in the MUMNE algorithm involves constructing a cascade diagram. The
cascade diagram simply shows the net amount of energy in each temperature interval.
Because energy can always be transferred down a temperature gradient, if there is excess
energy in a temperature interval, this energy can be cascaded down to the next temperature
level. From the cascade diagram, it is evident that there is a point in the diagram at which
no more energy can be cascaded down, and that energy most often must be supplied from
the hot utility to the process. This point is represented by line ab in the diagram. Below
this line, the cascading process can continue; but, again, at some point, excess heat must
be rejected from the process to the cold utility. The line ab is termed the pinch zone or
pinch temperature. By following the procedure described above, the minimum energy is
transferred from the hot utility to the process and from the process to the cold utility.
Step 4: Calculation for minimum number of heat exchangers.
Once the pinch temperatures have been found from Step 3, it is necessary to find the
minimum number of heat exchangers required to carry out the heat transfer for the
minimum utility design. From this point on, the heat transfer problem will be split into
two and we will consider above and below the pinch as separate systems.

Above the Pinch. The easiest way to evaluate the minimum number of heat exchangers
required is to draw boxes representing the energy in the hot and cold process streams and
the hot utility. Energy is now transferred from the hot streams and hot utility to the cold
streams. These energy transfers are indicated by lines, with the amount of energy
transferred shown to the side of the lines. Clearly, all the energy in the hot streams and
utilities must be transferred to the cold streams. For each line drawn, one heat exchanger
is required; thus, by minimizing the number of lines the number of heat exchangers is
minimized.

Below the Pinch. The same method is used to calculate the minimum number of
exchangers below the pinch. The diagrams for above and below the pinch are shown in the
following figure, and from this it can be seen that five exchangers are required above the
pinch and three below the pinch, or a total of eight heat exchangers for the entire network.
 Practice exercises
Problem 1
Problem 2