College of Engineering

Department of Chemical Engineering

Process Integration and Optimization

Part I: Process Integration

Lecture 1

Amsalu G.
 Introduction to PIO

 Process Integration and Optimization (PIO) is a systematic approach

to improving the efficiency and performance of industrial processes.
 It involves the identification and implementation of synergies
between different processes and units within a plant or across
multiple plants.
 PIO can be used to reduce energy consumption, raw material usage,
waste production, and emissions.
 It can also improve product quality and yield, increase production
capacity, and reduce costs.
 …Cont’d
 PIO is based on a variety of principles, including:
Mass and Energy Conservation: All mass and energy entering a process
must leave it, either in the form of products, waste, or emissions.
Thermodynamics: The laws of thermodynamics can be used to identify
and quantify the potential for energy savings and other improvements.
Pinch Analysis: Pinch analysis is a graphical technique that can be used
to identify and optimize heat exchange opportunities between different
processes and units.
Mathematical Programming: Mathematical programming can be used to
solve complex PIO problems, such as optimal process design and
scheduling.
 …Cont’d
 PIO can be used to improve industrial processes
including:
 Heat Integration: Heat integration involves transferring
heat from one process to another where it can be used
productively, rather than being wasted to the
environment. For example, waste heat from a furnace
can be used to preheat feedstock for another process.
 Mass Integration: Mass integration involves reducing
the generation of waste and emissions by recycling and
reusing materials within a process or across multiple
processes. For example, a solvent used in one process
can be recovered and reused in another process.
 …Cont’d

 Process Design: PIO can be used to design new processes that

are more efficient and sustainable. For example, a process can
be designed to minimize the use of energy and raw materials,
and to maximize the production of high-value products.
 Process Scheduling: PIO can be used to schedule production in
a way that optimizes the use of resources and minimizes costs.
For example, a process can be scheduled to operate at peak
efficiency during times of high demand and to reduce
production during times of low demand.
 …Cont’d

 PIO is a complex and challenging field, but it has the potential

to deliver significant benefits to industry.
 By integrating and optimizing processes, companies can reduce
their environmental impact, improve their profitability, and
become more competitive.
Process Integration
 …Cont’d
 What is Process Integration?
 What do we mean by a Process? and
 What do we mean by Integration?
 A Process can be regarded as a “Converter”
 …Cont’d
Integration means combining Needs/Tasks of “opposite” kinds so that Savings can
be obtained.
Examples of such integration in the process industries:
 Heat Integration
 Cooling & Condensation integrated with Heating & Evaporation
 Design the corresponding Heat Exchanger Network
 Power Integration
• Expansion integrated with Compression
 Chemical Integration
 Byproducts from one Plant used as Raw Materials in other Plants
 Equipment Integration
• Multiple Phenomena (Reaction, Separation, Heat Transfer) are integrated
in the same piece of Equipment Process Intensification
Evaluation of Process Design from History to Future
 Application of Process Integration
 Process Integration concepts can be applied in various fields such as:
 Heat integration – heat exchange network
 Distillation column targeting
 Batch process targeting and optimization
 Emission targeting(GHG emission reduction)
 Mass exchange network (water and waste water management &
recovery of valuable materials)
 Hydrogen management in refineries
 Debottlenecking of critical areas in process industries.
 Pollution prevention
 Co-production system
 Financial management
 Low temperature process
 Pinch Technology

 Pinch Technology is a Technique Available for Process Integration

Pinch Technology
 It is One of the most successful and generally useful techniques that
developed by Bodo Linnhoff and other workers:
 Pinch Technology provides a systematic methodology for energy
saving in processes and total sites.
 The methodology is based on thermodynamic principles. Figure 1
illustrates the role of Pinch Technology in the overall process design.
 The process design hierarchy can be represented by the “onion
diagram”
…Cont’d
 …Cont’d

 The design of a process starts with the reactors (in the “core” of
the onion).
 Once feeds, products, recycle concentrations and flow rates are
known, the separators (the second layer of the onion) can be
designed.
 The basic process heat and material balance is now in place, and
the heat exchanger network (the third layer) can be designed.
 The remaining heating and cooling duties are handled by the
utility system (the fourth layer).
 The process utility system may be a part of a centralized site-
wide utility system.
 …Cont’d
 The term pinch analysis is often used to represent the application
of the tools and algorithms of pinch technology for studying
industrial process.
 Pinch Analysis starts with the heat and material balance for the
process.
 Among the PI methodologies, Pinch Analysis is currently the
most widely used. This is due to the simplicity of its underlying
concepts and, specially, to the spectacular results it has obtained
in numerous projects worldwide.
 It is a systematic methodology based on thermodynamic
principles to achieve utility savings by better process heat
integration, maximizing heat recovery and reducing the external
utility loads (cooling water and heating steam).
 …Cont’d

 The application has resulted in significant improvements in the

energy and capital efficiency of industrial facilities

 It identifies the existence of built-in spare heat transfer areas

and presents the designer with opportunities for cheap retrofits.

 Pinch Technology is a well proven method in industries such as

chemical, petrochemical, oil refining, paper and pulp, food and
drinks, steel and metallurgy, etc., leading to an energy saving of
10 to 35%, water saving of the tune of 25 to 40% and hydrogen
savings up to 20%.
 …Cont’d

 Heat integration using Pinch Technology employs

extensively the Laws of Thermodynamics ⇝ I & II laws

 Process integration has already had a profound effect on the

chemical process industries, in the form of Pinch Technology
and heat-exchanger-network optimization.
 First Law of Thermodynamics

 Provides the energy equation for calculating the enthalpy

changes( ∆H) in the streams passing through a heat exchanger.
 Energy, neither created nor destroyed. It can only change forms
 Second Law of Thermodynamics
 Determines the direction of heat flow. That is, heat energy may
only flow in the direction of hot to cold.
 This prohibits ‘temperature crossovers’ of the hot and cold stream
profiles through the exchanger unit.
 Simply, heat transfer can only occur spontaneously in the
direction of temperature decrease.
 Any system which is free of external influences becomes more
disordered with time.
 It is impossible for a system to receive a given amount of heat
from a high-temperature reservoir and provide an equal amount
of work output.
 The sum of the entropy changes of a system and that of its
surroundings must always be positive.
 Basic Concept of Pinch Analysis
 Pinch Analysis
 The most industrial processes involve transfer of heat either
from one process stream to another process
stream(interchanging) or from a utility stream to a process
stream
 The target in any industrial processes design is to maximize the
process-to-process heat recovery and to minimize the utility
(energy) requirements.
 To meet the goal of maximum energy recovery or minimizing
energy requirement an appropriate heat exchanger network is
required.
 With the application of Pinch Analysis, savings can be achieved
in both capital investment and operating cost.
 Possible Benefits of Pinch Analysis
• The ability to set a target energy consumption for an individual process or for an
entire production site before designing the processes
• Pinch Analysis quickly identifies where energy, water, hydrogen and other
material savings are likely to be found
• Reduction of emissions
• Pinch Analysis enables the engineer to find the best way to change a process, if
the process allows it
• Update or develop process flow diagrams
• Identify process bottlenecks
• Run both department and full plant facilities simulations
• Determine minimal heating (steam) and cooling requirements
• Identify cogeneration (generation of electricity and useful heat jointly)
opportunities
• Estimate costs of projects to achieve energy savings
• Evaluate new equipment configurations for the most economical installation
Substitute past energy studies with a live
• Substitute past energy studies with a live study that can be easily updated using
simulation
 Basic Concepts
 Composite Curves: It is the most fundamental concepts in Pinch
analysis
 Visualizes the flow of heat between the hot and cold process
streams selected for heat integration.
 It obtained by plotting the cumulative enthalpy of streams,
Temperature - Enthalpy (T - H) plots, have been used for many
years to set energy targets ahead of design.
 The relative position of the composite curves depends on the
minimum temperature difference ∆Tmin between cold and hot
streams.
 This sets also the Pinch position as the place where the heat
transfer between the hot and cold streams is the most constrained.
 …Cont’d

 Composite Curves enable to determine directly the Minimum

Energy Requirements (MER) from stream data without ever
calculate heat exchangers. These are the minimum hot (Qh) and
minimum cold (Qc) utility required for driving the heat exchanger
network, with a minimum driving force of ∆Tmin at Pinch.

 The Pinch principle states that any design where heat is

transferred across the Pinch will require more energy than
minimum requirements. Consequently, the heat recovery problem
is divided into two subsystems, above and below the Pinch.
T-H Diagrams
 Grid Diagram
 The most helpful and easier representation to designing a heat
exchanger network
 The process streams are drawn as horizontal lines, with the stream
numbers shown in square boxes.
 Hot streams are drawn at the top of the grid, and flow from left to right.
 The cold streams are drawn at the bottom, and flow from right to left.
 The stream heat capacities CP are shown in a column at the end of the
stream lines.
 Heat exchangers are drawn as two circles connected by a vertical line.
 The circles connect the two streams between which heat is being
exchanged; that is, the streams that would flow through the actual
exchanger.
 Heater and coolers are drawn as a single circle, connected to the
appropriate utility.
…Cont’d
 Cost Targeting:- Determine Optimal ∆𝐓min

 The minimum temperature difference between the hot and cold

composite curves affects the pinch temperature, the required
external utilities, and the size of the heat exchangers.

 The optimum ∆Tmin is determined based on the trade-off between

energy and capital such that the total cost for heat recovery system
is minimum.

 The total annual cost consists of two parts, namely, the capital cost
and the energy operating cost:
 …Cont’d

1) The energy operating cost includes energy expenses for both

hot and cold utilities, which is billed annually in $/year.

2) The capital cost of the network is the summation of installed

costs for all individual heat transfer equipment, including heat
exchangers, furnaces, steam heaters, water coolers,
refrigeration, and other related costs, including foundation,
piping, instrumentation, control, and so on.
 …Cont’d

 To arrive at an optimum ΔTmin value the total annual cost (the sum
of total energy and capital cost) is plotted at varying ΔTmin values.

 Three key observations can be made from below figure

1) An increase in ΔTmin value result in higher energy costs and lower

capital costs.

2) A decrease in ΔTmin values result in lower energy costs and higher

capital costs.

3) An optimum ΔTmin exists where the total annual cost of energy

and capital costs is minimized
…Cont’d
 …Cont’d

 What are costs that are affected by changing the minimum

temperature approach in a heat-exchanger network (HEN) design?

 Cost of utilities (hot and cold)

 Cost of heat exchangers in the network, including process-process

and process utility exchanger

 When we decreasing the ∆Tmin in a HEN, the process-process heat

exchangers at the pinch will require large areas and will therefor be
more expensive. However, the amount and cost of hot and cold
utilities for the HEN will be reduced.
 Pinch Point
 The location of ΔTmin is called the process pinch. In other words, the
pinch point occurs at ΔTmin
 When the hot and cold composite curves move closer to a specified
∆Tmin, the heat recovery reaches the maximum and the hot and cold
utilities reach the minimum. Thus, the pinch point becomes the
bottleneck for further reduction of hot and cold utilities. Process
changes must be made if further utility reduction is pursued.
 Heat transferred across the Pinch will require more energy than
minimum requirements.
 No heat is transferred through the pinch. This is known as the concept
in pinch technology.
 This makes the region the heat recovery problem, which is divided into
two subsystems, above and below the Pinch. Heating utility can be
used only above the pinch and cooling utility only below the pinch.
…Cont’d
 The Plus–Minus Principle
 The hot composite curve consists of only two streams; A between
20°C and 40°C, and B between 40°C and 120°C.
 To increase the heat exchange and reduce the utility requirements, we
should modify the composite curves
 …Cont’d
 Increase the heat load of hot streams above the pinch or cold
streams below the pinch, and conversely to decrease the cold
streams above the pinch and hot streams below the pinch. This is
the so-called “plus–minus principle”
 Or cold stream is removed from above the Pinch (minus) and
placed below (plus).
 The sections of the composite curves where heat should be added
are marked with a plus(deficit), and sections where the heat load
should be reduced are marked with a minus(surplus)
 …Cont’d
 The formal statement of the plus–minus principle is that a process
change will reduce the utility targets if it does one of the
following:
a) Increases the total hot stream heat load above the pinch;
b) Decreases the total cold stream load above the pinch;
c) Decreases the total hot stream load below the pinch;
d) Increases the total cold stream load below the pinch.
 Changes (a) and (b) will reduce the hot utility requirement.
Changes (c) and (d) will reduce the cold utility requirement.
The End of Lecture 1!!!