Industrial heat utilisation through water management

Abstract

Paper presented at the 8th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Mauritius, 11-13 July, 2011.

The focus of this paper is on the dependence between water and energy in industry and the way these resources can be managed in an integrated and more sustainable manner. The fundamental methodology supporting the concept of simultaneous management of water and energy is the process systems approach guided by deep understanding of the simultaneous mass and heat transfer, considering phase and pressure changes. Special attention in this case is paid to the utilisation of the latent heat of water evaporation and condensation (allowing for water and heat recycling). The paper takes a new view to water solutions management especially when processes experience difficulties for direct heat recovery. The paper also highlights the link between water management, heat recovery, process efficiency improvement and capacity de-bottlenecking, which bring additional positive impact of proposed methodologies. The advantages of efficiency improvement, water saving and improved environmental impact of proposed solutions are analysed and demonstrated on an industrial case.