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a raw material for production, a medium for the transport of energy, an agent for cleaning,
etc. The use of natural gas and fuel oil as sources of energy is associated with greenhouse gas
emissions (Fernandez et al., 2012) and although water is relatively cheap, batch processes
generate effluents with toxic contaminants that can be expensive to treat (Gouws et al.,
2010). For these reasons and others, process integration techniques were developed to reduce
environmental pollution associated with the consumption of energy and water during plant
Equipment cleaning with water for the changeover operation is of particular interest. The
order in which tasks take place in a unit affects the amount of water required for washing as
In recent years, Pinch Analysis has been extended to cooling water systems design
following its success in heat exchanger networks (HENs) and mass exchanger networks
(MENs). The most significant work on cooling water network design was developed by
Kim and Smith (2001) where a graphical methodology for designing cooling water
systems was developed. Research on cooling water networks was necessitated by the
need to optimize the amount of cooling water used in process industries. It is always
important to conserve water as well as reduce the amount of contaminated water that is
discharged to the main sources of water.
homelands. These statistics indicate that there is a need to ensure that more people have
access to clean water. Pollution of rivers, which are the main source of water in South
Africa, should thus be minimized. Most of the pollution comes from industry.
the supply of the usable water continues to become an increasing problem and the demand of
For water and wastewater minimization, during the past decade, various systematic methods
based on pinch analysis have played an important role in saving water resources and developing
environmentally friendly designs for water systems. The basic idea is that wastewater can be
reused directly in other operations when water-using operations can accept the contamination
Water is consumed in many operations for different purposes: (1) extraction, absorption and
scrubbing operations, (2) condensation and quenching operations, (3) stripping operations, (4) steam
Excluding steam generation and cooling water systems, water contacts process materials in various
processes and then contaminated water is sent to wastewatertreatment. In practice, not all water is
fully reused or recycled in processes, even though its quality is good enough for reuse. For
example,steam condensate loss occurs. Not all the condensate is usually recovered. The steam
condensate not recovered is a good water source to reuse. While valuable water is not reused, the
quality requirements for cooling water makeup are not generally as high as for other industrial
processes. Therefore, cooling tower makeup can be changed from freshwater to reused water or even
wastewater, if the quality of the water is relatively good. As shown in Figure 1, water consumption
and wastewater generation can be reduced simultaneously when wastewater before discharge or
This paper will present a systematic method for the design of cooling water systems that accounts for
the interactions between water-using systems and cooling systems to reduce makeup
Water pinch technology is a systematic technique for analyzing water networks and reducing
expenditures related to different water using processes (e.g., Manan et al. 2006; El Halwagi
For current processes, the hierarchy of pollution prevention measures is: replace, reduce,
recover, reuse, recycle and finally, treat. This approach must be used whenever any waste
between the three main factors of a reuse/recycle system, ie effluent source, treatment process
and reuse process. Water pinch (Wang and Smith, 1994, 1995a, b; Olleson and Polley, 1997),
is a convenient tool for the rational analysis of a water network in order to identify bottlenecks,
and where recycle/reuse loops should be located. In simple terms, the current water and
effluent network should be analysed to determine if the optimal flow configuration is being
used. For sufficiently simple systems, a graphical approach can be used, in which the pinch
diagram is a plot of stream concentration as a function of mass flow. The pinch diagram is
constructed by considering the process requirements or constraints, and not the current effluent
flows and qualities. If the optimal network is not being used, then simple measures such as
effluent rerouting, cascading and recycling (without any treatment) should be considered. The
pinch analysis will also lead to the identification of the pinch point, is the bottleneck in the
effluent/water network, and which sets the minimum water requirements for the network of
processed. The pinch point might correspond to the quality of the inlet water, the outlet water
(final effluent) or some intermediate quality. Once an optimal arrangement has been achieved
with existing processes, it will be necessary to modify the processes for any further reduction
in the water requirements, so that they are able to use or produce streams of different qualities.
Large quantity of water is required in many industries, which is used in many processes for
washing or as part of the product. The resulting wastewater is usually treated in a central
requirements. In some cases, the treated wastewater may still contain certain level of pollutants.
Consequently, the environmental pollution increases due to this disposal trend. As opposed to
this conventional approach, reusing and re-routing the water streams in an integral water
network helps in reducing the consumption of freshwater, and minimizes the amount of
wastewater to be treated and disposed of to the environment. This is very important, especially
in developing countries where the relatively high cost and limited manpower pose additional
challenges to effective wastewater treatment. One of the methods that can be used to minimise
wastewater production is by Graphical method known as Water Pinch Technology (WPT) or
Water and waste water minimization through process integration using water pinch
analysis gives answers to key questions in retrofitting existing facilities and designing water-
3. How should a piping system be designed to make water reuse possible and minimize
wastewater generation?
The main objective of this study will be to determine the maximum water recovery and
minimize wastewater generation of the _____ through Water Pinch Analysis. Specifically it
aims to:
1. Identify the minimum feed water consumption and wastewater generation in water usng
2. Design a water-using network that achieves the identified flow rate targets for the feed
3. Design a piping system for water reuse and minimize wastewater generation through
Process integration, combined with other tools such as process simulation, is a powerful
approach that allows engineers to systematically analyse an industrial process and the
interactions between its various parts. In general, PI’s added value, compared to that of
traditional approaches, is particularly significant for large and complex industrial facilities.
This is because the more complex the process becomes, the harder it is to identify the best
Center, 2003).
conjecturing which of the many available component parts one should use, and how they should
be interconnected to structure the optimal solution to a given design problem. The aim of
process synthesis is to determine how each process element is integrated and the flow sheet of
design will be obtained to meet pre-specified objectives. Hence, within the process synthesis
activity, process inputs (feed streams) and outputs (product streams) are given and it is required
either to revise the configuration or parameters of existing flow sheet (retrofit design), or, create
a new flow sheet (grass-root design) to cater for certain objectives (El-Halwagi, et al., 2003).
Process synthesis, simulation, and optimization are three main elements of comprehensive
Process Integration. While the aim of process synthesis is to connect all individual elements
them into individuals. Therefore, through simulation, the characteristics (e.g. flow rate,
composition, pressure, etc.) of process can be determined after the process has been
synthesised. When the process configuration and characteristics has been defined, one should
evaluate if this is the best solution. It can be achieved by introducing the process objectives and
conducting optimization. Process synthesis and simulation are iteratively carried on until the
process objectives are met. Process integration is regarded by El-Halwagi (2006) as a holistic
and systematic way that consider the unity of the process for new or retrofit design.
One of the most practical tools to emerge in the field of process integration in the past 20
years has been pinch analysis, which may be used to improve the efficient use of energy,
hydrogen and water in industrial processes. Over the past 20 years, pinch analysis has evolved
and its techniques perfected. It provides tools that allow us to investigate the energy flows
within a process, and to identify the most economical ways of maximizing heat recovery and
of minimizing the demand for external utilities (e.g., steam and cooling water). The approach
The ideal time to apply pinch analysis is during the planning of process modifications that
will require major investments, and before the finalization of process design. Maximum
improvements in energy efficiency, along with reduced investments can be obtained in a new
plant design, since many plant-layout and -process constraints can be overcome by redesign.
However, in retrofit projects, energy efficiency improvements usually require some capital
expenditure. In this case, pinch analysis can be specifically aimed at maximizing the return on
Indeed, the final investment strategy for the available opportunities will ensure that site
Over the past 20 years, hundreds of pinch analyses have been successfully used to
reduce energy consumption site-wide, and in individual processes. More recently, pinch
analysis has also achieved spectacular results in the optimization of water and hydrogen
consumption.
The application of pinch analysis (in industrial sectors such as oil refining, chemicals, iron and
steel, pulp and paper, petrochemicals, and food & drink) can typically identify:
Pinch analysis (or pinch technology) is a rigorous, structured approach that may be used to
tackle a wide range of improvements related to process and site utility. This includes
efficiency, and reducing and planning capital investment. Major reasons for the success of
pinch analysis are the simplicity of the concepts behind the approach, and the impressive results
it has been obtained worldwide. It analyses a commodity, principally energy (energy pinch),
hydrogen (hydrogen pinch), or water (water pinch), in terms of its quality and quantity,
recognizing the fact that the cost of using that commodity will be a function of both. In the case
of water, we feed pure water to our process and reject contaminated wastewater to treatment
plants.
Network Process” analogies between heat conservation and wastewater minimization have
been used to extend the pinch concept to wastewater minimization from which they developed
station. The superstructure was optimized and the uneconomical features of the design were
Their work addressed single contaminant cases as well as the identification of regeneration
opportunities. Procedures were presented for the design of networks, which allow the minimum
temperature enthalpy curves introduced in thermal pinch analysis. This composite curve was
then matched to a composite curve through the origin. The minimum water supply touches
curve at a minimum of two points i.e. the origin and one other. The point other than the origin
is known as pinch point. Two methods were presented to achieve this minimum flow rate
design. The first is referred as to the maximum driving force method, which uses concentration
differences between various streams to target the minimum flow rate. The second method is
referred to as the minimum number of waste sources method and uses load intervals. In each
interval only enough water is used to maintain network feasibility, the remainder is bypassed
in which different minimum concentration differences can be allowed throughout the network
together with constraints due to corrosion limit, fouling and etc.,in a petroleum refinery
situation. Consequently, they discussed a single and multiple operations with fixed flowrate
and processes with multiple sources of water of varying quality. Water loss in processes is also
taken into account. New design rules allow novel water flow schemes to be developed based
Dhole et al. (1996) introduced an approach slightly different to that of Wang and Smith.
This method, known as the Two Composite Method, was designed to overcome the problem
encountered in real life application of the Wang and Smith methodology. Beuhner and Rossiter
further expanded this methodology. They used purity on vertical axis and water flow on
horizontal axis. The input streams of all the water demand for the entire plant. The output
streams are plotted in the same way in order to construct the source composite for the entire
plant. The composite curves form a pinch point that represents a bottleneck in the re-use of
water. The design of the minimum water network is then achieved by the mixing of wastewater
of varying qualities in order to relieve the bottleneck in reuse opportunities that is created by
Olesen and Polley (1997) reviewed the procedures introduced by Wang and Smith
concerning single contaminants. They introduced a new network designing procedure in which
they classify operations into distinct types, each of which has distinct design implications. This
method is based on the use of a load table, which tabulates the distribution of duties in the
region of the pinch and the minimum water needs for each operation. They considered the case
Graphical analysis tools have been used to gain insight into the nature of the water using
networks. In most of these methods the elements of the overall system are addressed separately.
Wang and Smith (1994) used a graphical approach to design the water-using subsystem and
the treatment network for the wastewater streams is determined as a second step. Kuo and
Smith (1998) and Hallale and Fraser (2000) used graphical insights to address the design of the
overall system. Graphical methods are however generally limited for the use in systems with
multiple contaminants and flow rate constraints which make them difficult to solve. The
graphical approach targets the fresh water flow rate and therefore does not allow for
Alva-Argaez characterized the four basic elements of an individual water using system as
follows: i) freshwater sources, each with a maximum available flowrate, concentration of key
pollutants and cost per unit used, ii) water and wastewater treatment plants, each with a
maximum flow capacity, and efficiency for the removal of the key pollutants and possible water
losses, iii) water-using operations each with a flow demand and quality requirements and iv) a
wastewater discharge point where some environmental regulations must be met, in terms of