Automated Targeting Technique for Single-Impurity Resource Conservation Networks. Part 2: Single-Pass and Partitioning Waste-Interception Systems

Abstract

Part 1 of this pair of articles presents an automated targeting technique to identify minimum fresh resource flow rate/cost targets in a resource conservation network (RCN) with material reuse/recycle. After the potential for conservation through direct reuse/recycle is exhausted, fresh resource consumption can be further reduced by incorporating waste-interception (regeneration) processes. Hence, the proposed automated targeting technique in part 1 of this pair of articles is extended to determine the targets for RCNs with interception placement. The waste-interception systems are modeled as treatment processes with either fixed outlet concentrations or fixed impurity load removal ratios. The approach also distinguishes between single-pass and partitioning regenerators, which have different implications for RCNs. Literature examples and industrial cases are solved to illustrate the proposed approach.