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Simultaneous heat integration and the synthesis of biogas processes from animal waste
Author(s) -
Drobež Rozalija,
Novak Pintarič Zorka,
Pahor Bojan,
Kravanja Zdravko
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
asia‐pacific journal of chemical engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.348
H-Index - 35
eISSN - 1932-2143
pISSN - 1932-2135
DOI - 10.1002/apj.504
Subject(s) - biogas , process integration , cogeneration , electricity , process engineering , waste heat , process (computing) , work (physics) , biogas production , nonlinear programming , engineering , waste management , environmental science , computer science , electricity generation , heat exchanger , mechanical engineering , nonlinear system , chemistry , anaerobic digestion , electrical engineering , organic chemistry , methane , power (physics) , physics , quantum mechanics , operating system
The objective of this work was to perform simultaneous heat integration and the synthesis of biogas process based on the mixed‐integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) model. A synthesis model recently developed by Drobež et al. [R. Drobež, Z. Novak Pintarič, B. Pahor, Z. Kravanja. Chem. Biochem. Eng. Q, 2009; 23, 445–459] has been upgraded for simultaneous heat integration. An industrial case study was solved in order to describe the mathematical model and to illustrate the heat‐integrated MINLP synthesis approach. The optimal solution indicates that during the synthesis of biogas process and when selecting the best auxiliary facilities significant benefit can be obtained if the selected process and auxiliary facilities are heat integrated. In this way almost the complete consumption of hot utility and 1/3 of cold utility can be saved, and thus most of the electricity and heat produced in the cogeneration system from biogas can be sold as surplus to the distribution networks. The proposed optimal synthesis of heat‐integrated biogas process may improve a company's economic performance and significantly reduce its environmental impact by converting environmentally harmful organic and animal wastes into valuable products. Copyright © 2010 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.