Introduction to Process Integration

Key steps in pinch analysis

1
 Lesson content
 Introduction
 T-E diagram
 Key steps of pinch analysis
 Data extraction
 Targeting

2
 Introduction
• Any flow which requires to be heated or cooled, but does not change
in composition, is defined as a stream.
• The feed, which starts cold and needs to be heated up, is known as a
cold stream.
• The hot product which must be cooled down is called a hot stream.
• The reaction process is not a stream, because it involves a change in
chemical composition
• The make-up flow is not a stream, because it is not heated or cooled.

3
 Cont…

• Hot streams
– Stream to be cooled
– Sources of heat
• Cold streams
– Stream to be heated
– Sinks of heat
• Supply temp – initial T
• Target temp – final T

4
 The temperature–enthalpy diagram

• A helpful method of visualization is the temperature–heat content

diagram.
• The T/H diagram can be used to represent heat exchange
• The heat content H of a stream (kW) is frequently called its enthalpy;
• Differential heat flow dQ, when added to a process stream, will
increase its enthalpy (H) by CPdT, where:
CP =“heat capacity flowrate” (kW/K) (mass flow W(kg/s)*specific
heat Cp (kJ/kgK))
dT=differential temperature change
5
 Key steps in pinch analysis
More specifically, the stages in design of heat
recovery systems are:
1. Data Extraction
2. Performance Targets
3. Process Modifications
4. Network Design
5. Design Evolution
6. Process Simulation

6
 1. Data extraction

• Data Extraction means collecting processing data about heating (QH,

min) and cooling requirements (QC, min).
• Similar data must be collected for systems available for external
heating and cooling, often referred to as Utility Data.
• Finally, Economic Data are needed, such as cost of heat exchangers
and utilities, economic parameters, etc.
• For grassroots, consistent data are normally available from rigorous
mass and energy balances established by process simulators.
• For retrofit, data could also be taken from process simulations;
alternatively data collected from measurements could be used. 7
 Cont…
a. Heat and mass balance
• The first step is to produce a heat and mass balance for the plant.
• The mass balance needs to be based on mass flow rates.
• The heat balance is more complicated. The raw data are
temperatures, heat loads and the flow rates from the mass
balance.
• Temperature is usually the most accurately measured parameter
on a plant, often to within 1°C, although effects of fouling or
location in “dead spots” must be checked for.

8
 Cont…
• Often, where there is no permanent instrument in a location, there
is a sampling point where a thermocouple can be introduced, or the
external pipe temperature may be measured
• Specific heat capacities and latent heats can be obtained from:

- literature

- manufacturers’ data

- measurement.
• Cooling loads may be found from the flow rate and temperature
drop of the cooling water, and heater loads from the steam flow
(often inaccurate; condensate flow measurement may be preferable).
9
 Cont…

• Heat transfer from furnaces is particularly difficult to measure

precisely, because of the heat losses via the stack.
• Closing the heat balance is usually a challenge, and in some cases it
may be necessary to refine the mass balance to get realistic figures.
b. Stream data extraction
• Having obtained a reliable heat and mass balance, the next stage is to
extract the hot and cold streams in the form required for pinch
analysis.
• A sensible criterion for a stream is that it should change in heat load
but not in composition. 10
 Cont…
The stream data required will be

 The temperature range (T1→T2),

 Stream type (hot or cold) and

 The heat capacity flow rate CP(kW/K) or the stream heat

load ∆H(Kw)

The last can be obtained in several ways:

 from stream mass flows and published (or measured) specific heat capacities

 from mass flows and specific enthalpy data

 from heat loads measured on heat exchangers

 by back-calculation from other stream heat loads in the heat balance

11
 Cont…
The various quantities are simply linked by the equation:

• where
• m: is the mass flowrate (kg/s);

• Cp: the specific heat capacity (kJ/kgK);

• ht: the specific enthalpy (kJ/kg).

c. Calculating heat loads and heat capacities

• The algorithms for pinch analysis were originally stated in terms of

heat capacity flow rate CP.
12
 Cont…
• However, in most practical cases it is more convenient to work from
heat loads in kW rather than heat capacity flow rates in kW/K.

• For a liquid mixture stream on an existing plant, the specific heat

capacity may not be known, whereas the heat load can be easily
found using the known loads on existing heat exchangers at
known temperatures.

• It is then easy to back-calculate CP from this data.

• A typical situation is where one or more streams’ heat capacity is

given as a polynomial in temperature T, so that:

13
 Cont…

d. Choosing streams
• How much should we subdivide streams when they pass through
intermediate process vessels such as storage tanks and pumps?
• Consider a stream which is currently heated from 10°C to 30°C,
passed through a storage tank, heated to 80°C in a heat exchanger and
then to 120°C in a utility heater.

1. It could be represented in the stream data as three separate streams.

2. Two streams, one from 10°C to the storage temperature of 30°C, and
one from 30°C to the final temperature of 120°C.

3. If the feed is represented by one stream running right through from

10°C to 120°C, the chances of finding an improved design are
greater still. 14
 Cont…

15
Data extraction from process flow
 Cont…
• If you break up process flows into too many separate streams, you increase

the apparent complexity of the network (more streams),

• Add unnecessary constraints and are likely to conceal heat recovery

opportunities.

• In general, the designer should decide which supply and target temperatures

he is going to define as “hard” (invariant), and which as “soft”.

• These decisions are clearly entirely dependent on the process technology

and to some extent on the designer’s experience.

• He therefore needs to know which constraints on his plant are real, and

which areas are flexible; and if the latter, by how much.

16
 Cont…
e. Mixing
• Mixing and splitting junctions can also cause problems in stream data

extraction.

• Consider two process flows of the same composition leaving separate

units at different temperatures, mixing and then requiring heating to a

common final temperature. This could be considered as one stream.

• However, mixing degrades temperature.

• To ensure the best energy performance at the targeting stage, the

mixing should be assumed isothermal.

17
 Cont…
• Hence, heat each stream separately to its final temperature, or
heat/cool one stream to the temperature of the other, then mix,
and then heat/cool the resulting mixture to its final
temperature.

18
 Cont…
Questions
• What If the original layout were retained???

1. Energy would be wasted.

2. Mixing the streams will degrade temperatures
3. Reduce the driving forces in heat exchangers,
4. Giving increased capital cost.

19
The solid line is for mixing and the broken line for the situation
where the streams are kept separate and run down to the final
temperature. 20
 Cont…
f. Heat losses

• Heat losses, like taxes, are an annoying and unavoidable fact of

life.

• In pinch analysis, they make stream data extraction more

complicated by causing a mismatch between streams’ inherent

heat capacities and the actual amount of heat which must be

supplied or can be extracted.

21
 Cont…

Summary of Data extraction

Useful overall guidelines to bear in mind when extracting data are:
1. Keep your hot streams hot and your cold streams cold

2. Avoid over-specifying the problem; don’t break up streams

unnecessarily
3. Avoid non-isothermal mixing at the energy targeting phase
4. Check and refine data in the neighborhood of the pinch (or other
areas of low net heat flow)
5. Identify any possible process constraints and find targets with and
without them, to see what energy penalty they impose 22
 Targeting
•Performance Targets refer to establishing measures for best performance

ahead of design only based on information available in the Stream Data,

Utility Data and Economic Data (the type of data that is needed depends on

the actual target (s) to be obtained).

•Typical targets for heat exchanger networks include


Minimum external heating (QH, min) and cooling (QC, min) demands,


Fewest number of heat exchangers (Umin), and


Minimum total heat transfer area (Amin)

•An important feature of Process Integration is the ability to identify

Performance Targets before the design step is started. 23

 Cont…
 Targeting procedure also helps in the evaluation of alternative
HEN designs.
 For heat recovery systems with a specified value for the minimum
allowable approach temperature (Tmin), targets can be established
for:

1. Energy Target (Minimum Energy Consumption through external

heating and cooling),
2. Fewest Number of Units (process/process heat exchangers,
heaters and coolers) in the HEN
3. Fewest number of shells in the heat exchanger network (HEN)
24
 Cont…
4. Minimum Total Heat Transfer Area of the HEN

5. Cost Targeting (Total annual cost of the HEN)

Energy targeting can be done through
 Hot and cold composite curves,
 Grand composite curve and

 Problem Table Algorithm

25
 Energy targeting
1. Composite curves
• To handle multiple streams, we add together the heat loads or
heat capacity flow rates of all streams existing over any given
temperature range.
• Thus, a single composite of all hot streams and a single
composite of all cold streams can be produced in the T/H
diagram, and handled in just the same way as the two-stream
problem.

26
• Between T1 and T2, only stream B
exists, and so the heat available in
this interval is given by CPB(T1-T2).
• However between T2 and T3 all
three streams exist and so the heat
available in this interval is
(CPA+CPB+CPC)(T2-T1 ).
•The overlap between the composite
curves represents the maximum
amount of heat recovery possible
within the process.
27
Cont…

• The resulting T/H plot is a single

curve representing all the hot streams,
known as the hot composite curve.
• A similar procedure gives a cold
composite curve of all the cold
streams in a problem.
•The “overshoot” at the bottom of the
hot composite represents the
minimum amount of external cooling
required and the “overshoot” at the
top of the cold composite represents
the minimum amount of external
28
heating (Hohmann 1971).
Cont…

29
 Example 1
Determine the Qcmin and Qh min by plotting composite curve.

30
 Cont…

31
(a) hot streams plotted separately (b) The composite hot stream
 Cont…

32
(a) The cold streams plotted separately. (b) The composite cold stream.
Cont…

33
 Cont…

THE PROBLEM TABLE ALGORITHM

• Although composite curves can be used to set energy targets, they
are inconvenient since they are based on a graphical
construction.
• A method of calculating energy targets directly without the
necessity of graphical construction can be developed.
• This shifting technique can be used to develop a strategy to
calculate the energy targets without having to construct
composite curves.

34
 Cont…

1. Set up shifted temperature intervals from the stream supply and target

temperatures by subtracting Tmin/2 from the hot streams and adding Tmin/2

to the cold streams.

2. In each shifted temperature interval, calculate a simple energy balance

from which some of the shifted intervals are seen to have a surplus of heat and

some have a deficit.

35
 Cont…

3. Now, cascade any surplus heat down the temperature scale from
interval to interval. This is possible because any excess heat
available from the hot streams in an interval is hot enough to
supply a deficit in the cold streams in the next interval down.

4. Some of the heat flows are negative, which is infeasible. Heat

cannot be transferred up the temperature scale. To make the
cascade feasible, sufficient heat must be added from hot utility to
make the heat flows to be at least zero.
 The smallest amount of heat needed from hot utility is the
largest negative heat flow

36
 Cont…
• This basic approach can be developed into a formal algorithm known as the
problem table algorithm.
• algorithm will be explained using the data from example one for Tmin=10◦C.

Hot streams are shifted down

in temperature byTmin/2 and
cold streams up byTmin/2 37
 Cont…
Qhm

Pinch

Qcm

(a) Cascade surplus heat from high to (b) Add heat from hot utility to make all heat
38
low temperature. flows zero or positive.
 Cont…
• QHmin=7.5MW

• QCmin=10 MW.
• The point where the heat flow goes to zero at T∗=145◦C
corresponds to the pinch.
• Thus, the actual hot and cold stream pinch temperatures are
150◦C and 140◦Crespectively.

39
 Cont…

The grand composite curve

• knowing the shifted composite curves, we can find the minimum amount of
heating or cooling that needs to be supplied at any given temperature.
• A graph of net heat flow (utility requirement) against shifted temperature can
then easily be plotted. This is known as the grand composite curve (GCC).
• It 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.
• Thus, the GCC is a plot of the net heat flow against the shifted (interval)
temperature, which is simply a graphical plot of the Problem Table (heat
cascade).

40
The grand composite curve shows the utility requirements both in enthalpy and
temperature terms. 41
 Cont…
Example 2:

The flow sheet for a low-temperature distillation process is

shown in Figure. Calculate the minimum hot and cold utility
requirements and the location of the pinch assuming

Tmin=5◦C.

42