The process industries are characterized by the enormous use of natural resources
such as raw materials, solvents, water, and utilities. Additionally, significant amounts of
wastes are discharged from industrial facilities. As the world moves toward sustainable
progress, that is, meeting the demand of the current generation without affecting or
compromising the new generation, future process facilities must focus on resource
conservation and pollution prevention. The purpose of this work is to introduce a new
process integration methodology for the conservation and optimization of resources in
the process industries. The work is also geared towards reducing waste discharge from
the processing facilities. The optimal management of fresh resources and waste disposal
requires the appropriate allocation, generation, and separation of streams and species.
Material recycle/reuse/substitution, reaction alteration, and process modification are
some of the main strategies employed to conserve resources in the process industries.
The overall problem addressed in this dissertation can be stated as follows: Given
is a process with a number of streams (sources) that are characterized by certain criteria
(e.g., compositions of certain compounds, targeted properties) where these streams can
be utilized in a number of process units (sinks) if they satisfy given constraints on flow
rate, compositions, and/or properties. Additionally, interception devices may be used to
adjust stream criteria. The objective is to develop targeting procedures and synthesis
tools for the identification of minimum usage of fresh resources, minimum discharge of
waste, and maximum integration of process resources. The devised methodology
addresses four classes of problems:
 Targeting techniques using direct recycle strategies
 Recycle and interception procedures for single-component systems
 Recycle and interception procedures for multi-component systems
 Property integration for direct recycle strategies
The framework provided by this dissertation couples traditional mass integration
with groundbreaking property integration techniques to target, synthesize and optimize a
plant for maximal conservation of resources. In particular, this work introduces new
techniques such as material recycle pinch analysis, simultaneous recycle and interception
networks, and property-based allocation. Additionally, graphical, algebraic, and
optimization approaches are developed and validated with case studies in order to
illustrate the applicability of the devised procedures.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/3144 |
| Date | 12 April 2006 |
| Creators | Gabriel, Frederico Burjack |
| Contributors | El-Halwagi, Mahmoud M. |
| Publisher | Texas A&M University |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | 1340373 bytes, electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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