Addressing Energy and Environmental Targets through Combined Process Integration Techniques

Abstract

It has been widely recognised that a significant amount of the energy purchased by industry is ultimately released as a low grade waste heat. Minimising the amount of waste heat generated and finding ways to reuse the waste heat has benefits for the industry including reduced costs and emissions and increased efficiency and competitiveness, and on a national level the benefits include reduced waste emissions, reduced energy imports, and importantly assistance with compliance in international emission reduction targets. While there are many methods by which heat sources can be assessed and optimised, most of these are not targeted at low grade heat recovery and those that are however are generally designed around specific processes, thus limiting their field of application. A new approach presented in this paper is to use existing Process Integration techniques combined with second law analysis, mathematical optimisation, and heuristic methods to develop a General Approach to Low Grade Energy Management (GALGEM). This general method includes a set of guidelines for engineering and design personnel in order to assist correct implementation of the methodology, and thus deliver an optimised thermal management design.