Kansha Y., Mizuno H., Kotani Y., Ishizuka M., Fu Q., Tsutsumi A., 2015, Numerical Investigation of Energy Saving Potential for Self-Heat Recuperation, Chemical Engineering Transactions, 45, 187-192.
Recently, energy saving technology has attracted increased interest in many countries for suppressing global warming and reducing the use of fossil fuels. Self-heat recuperation technology has recently been developed for energy saving of chemical processes. It has the characteristics whereby total process heat can be recirculated within the process, leading to a marked reduction in energy consumption. The authors have developed a simple calculation technique for the minimum energy required for thermal processes that was derived numerically from the view point of irreversibility and exergy loss for heat transfer. In addition, the authors reported that the actual energy required for a self-heat recuperative thermal process is almost the same as the value derived from this calculation technique. In this paper, the authors examined the minimum energy required for thermal processes with/without heat recovery or based on self-heat recuperation using the cold process stream properties and also evaluated the energy saving potential of these processes using process simulation. Since the results obtained from the calculation method can be used as target values of heat recovery technology, this investigation supports process intensification and is promising for industries to examine the energy saving potential when designing a thermal process.
