Chapter 4: Practical Energy Integration

A. Heat Integration of Distillation Columns

The Heat Integration Characteristics of Distillation

 The dominant heating and cooling duties associated with a distillation

column are the reboiler and condenser duties.

 However, there will be other duties associated with heating and

cooling of feed and product streams

 These sensible heat duties usually will be small in comparison with

the latent heat changes in reboilers and condensers

 Hence, in preliminary design at least, both reboiling and condensing

can be assumed to take place at constant temperatures.

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The Appropriate Placement of Distillation

• Consider now the consequences of placing simple distillation columns (i.e.

one feed, two products, one reboiler and one condenser) in different
locations relative to the heat recovery pinch.

• The separator takes heat QREB into the reboiler at temperature TREB
and rejects heat QCOND at a lower temperature TCOND.

• There are two possible ways in which the column can be heat integrated
with the rest of the process.

• The reboiler and condenser can be integrated either above or below heat
recovery pinch.

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Above the pinch
 The distillation column takes heat
QREB from the process and returns
QCOND at a temperature above the
pinch.
• The hot utility consumption changes by
(QREB –QCOND)
• The cold utility consumption is
unchanged.
• Usually, QREB and QCOND have a
similar magnitude.
• If QREB≈QCOND, then the hot
utility consumption is QHmin, and
there is no additional hot utility
required to run the column.

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Across the pinch
 Heat QREB is taken into the reboiler
above pinch temperature and heat
QCOND rejected from the condenser
below pinch temperature.
 Because the process sink above the pinch
requires at least QHmin to satisfy its
enthalpy balance, the QREB removed by
the reboiler must be compensated for by
introducing an extra QREB from hot
utility.
 Below the pinch, the process needs to
reject QCmin anyway, and an extra heat
load QCOND from the condenser has
been introduced.
 There are fundamentally no savings
available from the integration of a
separator across the pinch
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Below the pinch

 Now the hot utility is unchanged, but the

cold utility consumption changes by
(QCOND– QREB).
 Again, given that QREB and QCOND
usually have similar magnitudes, the result
is similar to heat integration above the pinch
.

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 CAPITAL COST CONSIDERATIONS
Capital Cost Considerations

Distillation and Heat exchanger network capital costs

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Heat Integration Characteristics of Distillation Sequences

Heat integration of a sequence of two simple distillation columns.

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• The first distillation column has been increased in pressure such that the
condenser of the first column can provide the heat for the reboiler of the
second column sometimes known as forward integration.

• The pressure of the second column has been increased such that the
condenser of the second column can provide the heat for the reboiler of
the first, sometimes known as backward integration.

• Both schemes will bring about a significant reduction in the energy

requirement

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 This approach to the overall problem breaks down the design procedure into two
steps of first determining the best nonintegrated sequence and then heat integrating.

For unconstrained sequences of simple columns, the best few nonintegrated sequences turn
into the best few integrated sequences

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B. Heat Integration of Reactors

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The Heat Integration Characteristics of Reactors

• The heat integration characteristics of reactors depend both on the

decisions that have been made for the removal or addition of heat and
the reactor mixing characteristics.

• Different operation should be considered to provide simplest design.

1. Adiabatic operation
Adiabatic operation leads to an acceptable temperature rise for exothermic
reactors or an acceptable decrease for endothermic reactors, then this

is the option that would normally be chosen.

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• If this is the case, then the feed stream to the reactor requires heating
and the effluent stream requires cooling

• The heat integration characteristics are thus a cold stream (the reactor
feed) if the feed needs to be increased in temperature or vaporized, and a
hot stream (the reactor effluent) if the product needs to be decreased
in temperature or condensed.

• The heat of reaction appears as increased temperature of the effluent

stream in the case of exothermic reaction or decreased temperature in
the case of endothermic reaction.

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2. Heat carriers

• An inert material can be introduced with the reactor feed to increase its
heat capacity flow rate and to reduce the temperature rise for exothermic
reactions or reduce temperature fall for endothermic reactions.

• The operation is still adiabatic, but an inert material is introduced with

the reactor feed as a heat carrier.

• The heat integration characteristics are as before.

• The reactor feed is a cold stream and the reactor effluent a hot stream.

• The heat carrier serves to increase the heat capacity flow rate of both
streams.

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Examples,

 An excess of feed material could be used to limit the temperature

change, effectively decreasing the conversion, but for temperature
control purposes.

 Product or by product could be recycled to the reactor to limit the

temperature change, but care must be taken to ensure that this does not
have a detrimental effect on the selectivity or reactor yield.

 Alternatively, an extraneous inert material such as steam can be used

to limit the temperature rise or fall.

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3. Cold shot

 The injection of cold fresh feed directly into the reactor at intermediate
points, known as cold shot, can be extremely effective for control of
temperature in exothermic reactions.

 This not only controls the temperature by direct contact heat transfer
through mixing with cold material but also controls the rate of reaction
by controlling the concentration of feed material.

 Injection of cold fresh feed for exothermic reactions or preheated feed

for endothermic reactions to intermediate points in the reactor can be
used to control the temperature in the reactor.

 Again, the heat integration characteristics are similar to adiabatic

operation.
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Cont….
• If the reaction is endothermic, then fresh feed that has been preheated
can be injected at intermediate points, known as hot shot. Again the
temperature control is through a combination of direct contact heat
transfer and control of the concentration.

• The feed is a cold stream if it needs to be increased in temperature or

vaporized and

• The product a hot stream if it needs to be decreased in temperature or

condensed.

• If heat is provided to the cold shot or hot shot streams, these are
additional cold streams.

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4. Indirect heat transfer with the reactor

 Indirect heating or cooling can also be considered.

 This might be by a heat transfer surface inside the reactor, such as

carrying out the reaction inside a tube and providing a heating or
cooling medium outside of the tube.

 Alternatively, material could be taken outside of the reactor at an

intermediate point to a heat transfer device to provide the heating or
cooling and then returned to the reactor.

 Although indirect heat transfer with the reactor tends to bring about
the most complex reactor design options, it is often preferable to
the use of a heat carrier.

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20
Cont…
• Figure (a) shows two possible thermal profiles for exothermic plug-
flow reactors.

• If the rate of heat removal is low and/or the heat of reaction is

high, then the temperature of the reacting stream will increase
along the length of the reactor.

• If the rate of heat removal is high and/or the heat of reaction is

low, then the temperature will decrease.

• Figure (b) shows two possible thermal profiles for endothermic

plug-flow reactors. This time, the temperature decreases for low
rates of heat addition and/or high heat of reaction.

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Cont…
• The thermal profile through the reactor will, in most circumstances, be
carefully optimized to maximize selectivity, extend catalyst life, and so
on.

• Because of this, direct heat integration with other process streams is

almost never carried out.

• The heat transfer to or from the reactor is instead usually carried out by a
heat transfer intermediate. For example, in exothermic reactions, cooling
might occur by boiling water to generate steam, which, in turn, can be used
to heat cold streams elsewhere in the process or across the site.

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Cont…

• By contrast, if the reactor is mixed-flow, then the reactor is

isothermal. This behavior is typical of stirred tanks used for liquid-
phase reactions or fluidized-bed reactors used for gas-phase reactions.
The mixing causes the temperature in the reactor to be effectively
uniform.

• For the ideal-batch reactor, the temperature can be assumed to be

uniform throughout the reactor at any instant in time.

 Figure (a) shows typical variations in temperature with time for an

exothermic reaction in a batch reactor.

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Cont…

The heat transfer characteristics of batch reactors for a fixed rate of heat transfer.

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Cont…

• Each individual curve assumes the rate of heat transfer to the cooling
medium to be constant for that curve throughout the batch cycle.

• Figure b shows typical curves for endothermic reactions.

• Again, each individual curve in Figure b assumes the rate of heat

addition from the heating medium to be constant throughout the batch
process.

• Fixing the rate of heat transfer in a batch reactor is often not the best
way to control the reaction.

• The heating or cooling characteristics can be varied with time to suit

the characteristics of the reaction.

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Cont…

• Because of the complexity of batch operation and the fact that

operation is usually small scale, it is rare for any attempt to be made
to recover heat from a batch reactor or supply heat by recovery
• Instead, utilities are normally used.
 The heat duty on the heating/cooling medium is given by:

Where: Q REACT = reactor heating or cooling required,

HSTREAMS = enthalpy change between feed and product streams,
HREACT = reaction enthalpy (negative in the, case of exothermic
reactions)

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5.Quench
 The reactor effluent may need to be cooled rapidly (quenched).

 This can be by indirect heat transfer using conventional heat transfer

equipment or by direct heat transfer by mixing with another fluid.

 If indirect heat transfer is used with a large temperature difference to

promote high rates of cooling, then the cooling fluid (e.g. boiling water)
is fixed by process requirements.

 In this case, the heat of reaction is not available at the temperature of

the reactor effluent. Rather, the heat of reaction becomes available at
the temperature of the quench fluid.
 The quench fluid is a hot stream, and the reactor effluent after the
quench is also a hot stream

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Appropriate Placement of Reactors

 The process with an exothermic

reactor integrated above the pinch.
 The minimum hot utility can be reduced
by the heat released by reaction.

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Cont…

 Although heat is being recovered, it is

being recovered into part of the
process, which is a heat source.
 The hot utility requirement cannot be
reduced, since the process above the
pinch needs at least Qhmin to satisfy
its enthalpy imbalance.
 There is no benefit by integrating an
exothermic reactor below the pinch.
The appropriate placement for
exothermic reactors is above the pinch.

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Cont…
The endothermic reactor removes
QREACT from the process above the
pinch.
 The process above the pinch needs
at least Qhmin to satisfy its
enthalpy imbalance.
 Thus, an extra QREACT must be
imported from hot utility to
compensate.
 There is no benefit by integrating
an endothermic reactor above the
pinch.
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Cont…
The reactor imports QREACT from part
of the process that needs to reject heat
anyway.
Thus, integration of the reactor serves
to reduce the cold utility consumption
by QREACT.
There is an overall reduction in hot
utility because, without integration, the
−
process and reactor would require
(QHmin+QREACT) from the utility.
The appropriate placement for
endothermic reactors is below the pinch.

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Thank you !!

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