15 - Process Integration Concepts for Combined Energy and Water Integration

Abstract

All sectors of the process industries depend on water and energy resources to transform raw materials into a large number of products demanded by society. The sustainability issue is an essential consideration in process design, which drives significant efforts to improve both water and energy efficiency. Most of these processes display strong interactions between water and energy use such that any changes to the energy network often impact the water network, although this impact is seldom followed in any systematic way by process-design engineers. Due to a number of market externalities, the economic balance between energy and water is heavily inclined towards energy. However, with water shortages becoming more frequent throughout the world, it is likely that the balance will change in the near future. Other environmental aspects associated with chemical process design include energy-related issues such as greenhouse gas and other air emissions as well as water quality. This chapter reviews several useful Process Integration (PI)-based concepts recently developed across a number of worldwide research teams, in support of process-design applications dealing with problems characterised by strong energy and water interactions.