KMM 422E-2011 HW5

A chemical process recovers heat by transferring energy from a gas stream to a cold brine stream.
During the heating of the brine, salt deposits on the heat exchanger surfaces and cause significant
fouling. The result of this fouling is that the heat transfered to the brine is reduced and additional
heat from low pressure steam to be required later on in the process. A portion of the process flow
diagram below shows the heat exchangers for the initial (design case) and after the formation of
fouling.

It is known that the heat transfer coefficient for a brine/gas heat exchanger changes as the following
function of time, where t is the time in months after cleaning the heat exchanger , and u is the
overall heat transfer coefficient.

U=75(1-0.12t) W/m2.°C

The cost of cleaning the heat exchanger: $15,000 (there is no downtime for the process)

At the design conditions with unfouled exchanger surface, the flow of gas(Cp=800 J/kg°C) is
40,000 kg/h; the flow of brine (Cp=4000 J/kg°C) is 14,000 kg/h.

The heat exchanger has an LMTD correction factor F=0.9, which may be assumed not to change
during the fouling. If the flows and inlet temperatures of the streams remain constant, what is the
optimal cycle time for cleaning the heat exchanger? Write your solution strategy by explaining
the solution step by step. Think about these: What is decision parameter? What is the objective
function? What are the constraints?

Assume that as the brine outlet temperature drops from 60°Cdue to the fouling of the exchanger
surface, additional low pressure steam is used in the second exchanger to heat the brine to 60°C.