Introduction & Key concepts of

Pinch Technology
 Pinch Technology
The demand for effective usage of energy processes is increasing and nowadays every
process engineer is facing the challenge to seek answers to the questions related to
their process energy patterns. Below the questions that frequently may be asked are
listed:
• Is the existing process as energy efficient as it should be?
• How can new projects be evaluated with respect to their energy requirements?
• What changes can be made to increase the energy efficiency without incurring
any cost?
• What investments can be made to improve energy efficiency?
• What is the most appropriate utility mix for the process?
• How to put energy efficiency and other targets like reducing emissions,
increasing plant capacities, improve product qualities etc, into a one coherent
strategic plan for the overall site?

All these questions and more can be answered with a full understanding of Pinch
Technology and an awareness of the available tools for applying it in a practical way
 Pinch Technology
• Heat exchange equipment's encounter in many
industries for at least two reasons;
a) it is often necessary as part of the process to
change the thermal condition and
b) it is the ambition to minimize the energy
consumption of the given process
• The idea is to maximize the energy recovery
within the process or to minimize the use of
external energy sources.
Heat recovery and heat exchange

we will need to supply 180 kW of steam heating and 180 kW of water

cooling to operate the process
 Heat
Heat recovery
recovery and
and heat
heat exchange
exchange
Can we reduce energy consumption?
• Yes; if we can recover some heat from the hot stream and
use it to heat the cold stream in a heat exchanger, we will
need less steam and water to satisfy the remaining
duties.
• The flow sheet will then be as in Figure.
The temperature–enthalpy diagram
A helpful method of visualization is the
temperature–heat content diagram
 The temperature–enthalpy diagram
• The T/H diagram can be used to represent heat exchange.
• For feasible heat exchange between the two streams, the hot stream must at all
points be hotter than the cold stream.
• Figure 2.3 represents a limiting case; the hot stream cannot be moved further to
the right, to give greater heat recovery, because the temperature difference
between hot and cold streams at the cold end of the exchanger is already zero.
• In this example(Fig.2.3), the balance of heat required by the cold stream above
150°C (i.e. 50 kW) has to be made up from steam heating. Conversely, although
130 kW can be used for heat exchange, 50 kW of heat available in the hot stream
has to be rejected to cooling water. However, this is not a practically achievable
situation, as a zero temperature difference would require an infinitely large heat
exchanger.
• There is a correlation between the value of ∆Tmin in the exchanger and the total
utility load on the system. This means that if we choose a value of ∆Tmin, we have
an energy target for how much heating and cooling we should be using if we
design our heat exchanger correctly.
 Composite curves
• Composite curves are T/H diagrams
(temperature/heat diagrams) used to visualize
cold and hot streams and potential heat
transfer between them. It is a graphical
technique used for visualizing the heat
cascade.
 Composite curves
A helpful method of visualization is the temperature–heat content diagram based on the following
equations:

Where:
H – the heat content H of a stream, frequently called its enthalpy, kW;
Cp – heat capacity
TS – supply temperature, ºC
TT – target temperature, ºC
With CP assumed constant, for a stream requiring heating (“cold” stream) from a “supply
temperature” (TS) to a “target temperature” (TT), the total heat added will be equal to the
stream enthalpy change.
The slope of the line representing the stream is:

This is the theoretical basis for developing composite curves.

Composite curves
 Shifted composite curves
• If the composite curves are re-plotted on axes of shifted
temperature, we obtain the shifted composite curves, Figure
2.10. The shifted curves just touch at the pinch temperature,
and show even more clearly than the composite curves that
the pinch divides the process into two.

knowing the shifted composite

curves, we can find the minimum
amount of heating or cooling that
needs to be supplied at any given
temperature.
 The grand composite curve
• A graph of net heat flow (utility
requirement) against shifted
temperature is known as the
Grand composite curve (GCC).
• GCC represents the difference
between the heat available
from the hot streams and the
heat required by the cold
streams, relative to the pinch,
at a given shifted temperature.
 Summary
• Composite curves give conceptual
understanding of how energy targets can be
obtained.
• The Problem Table and its graphical
representation, the GCC, give the same results
(including the pinch location) more easily.
• Energy targeting is a powerful design and
“process integration” aid.
 Pinch and its Significance
Golden rules for the designer wishing to
produce a design achieving minimum utility
targets:
• Don’t transfer heat across the pinch.
• Don’t use cold utilities above the pinch.
• Don’t use hot utilities below the pinch.
• Targets: Once the composite curves and Problem Table are known, we
know exactly how much external heating is unavoidably required.
• The Pinch: Above the pinch the process needs external heating and below
the pinch it needs external cooling. This tells us where to place furnaces,
steam heaters, coolers, etc. It also tells us what site steam services should
be used and how we should recover heat from the exhaust of steam and
gas turbines.
• More in, more out: An off-target process requires more than the minimum
external heating and therefore more than the minimum external cooling
• Freedom of choice: The “heat sink” and the “heat source” are separate. As
long as the designer obeys this constraint he can follow his heart’s delight in
choosing plant-layouts, control arrangements, etc. If he has to violate this
constraint, he can evaluate the cross-pinch heat flow and therefore predict
what overall penalties will be involved.
• Trade-offs: A simple relationship exists between the number of streams
(process streams plus utilities) in a problem and the minimum number of
heat exchange “units” (i.e. heaters, coolers and interchangers); trade-off,
between energy recovery and number of units, adds to the traditional
concept of a trade-off between energy and surface area.
 Heat exchanger network design (HEN)
• For designing a heat exchanger network, The streams are
drawn as horizontal lines, with high temperatures on the left
and hot streams at the top; heat exchange matches are
represented by two circles joined by a vertical line.
• The grid represents the countercurrent nature of the heat
exchange, making it easier to check exchanger temperature
feasibility.
 Choosing ∆Tmin
• There is usually an optimal value for ∆Tmin
part way through the feasible range.
• The optimum is not exact and a significant
error can usually be tolerated initially.
• The optimum ∆Tmin is reduced by higher
energy costs, lower capital costs or a longer
payback period.
 How to do a pinch study
• Obtain, or produce, a copy of the plant flow sheet including temperature,
flow and heat capacity data, and produce a consistent heat and mass
balance .
• Extract the stream data from the heat and mass balance
• Select ∆Tmin, calculate energy targets and the pinch temperature
• Examine opportunities for process change, modify the stream data
accordingly and recalculate the targets
• Consider possibilities for integrating with other plants on site, or
restricting heat exchange to a subset of the streams; compare new targets
with original one
• Analyse the site power needs and identify opportunities for combined
heat and power (CHP) or heat pumping
• Having decided whether to implement process changes and what utility
levels will be used, design a heat exchanger network to recover heat
within the process
• Design the utility systems to supply the remaining heating and cooling
requirements, modifying the heat exchanger network as necessary