Abstract
The demand for polyester production has doubled in recent years. This paper describes energy-efficiency improvements in industrial polyester production through process optimisation, which includes the possibility of fuel savings for dry saturated steam production. Decreasing fuel consumption in processes with condensate, as well as flue-gas heat recovery, offers process efficiency growth and thermal pollution reduction. Also, the use of solar energy as an energy source is proposed. A solarised process without condensate and flue-gas heat recovery results in a natural gas saving of 61%. Using feed-water preheating together with condensate recovery reduces gas consumption by 66%. Fuel savings of 72% are shown using a solar field collector combined with a feed-water tank and economiser (ECO) for boiler-feed-water preheating, with a positive side effect of flue gases cooling from 204°C to 95°C. With an air preheater for combustion-air preheating together with a solar field and feed-water tank, the fuel saving becomes 71%, while the flue gas temperature diminishes from 204 to 64°C. The hybrid system, which includes a solar collector, boiler feed tank, ECO and air preheater, achieves natural gas saving up to 73% and a flue gas exhaust temperature of just 41°C.
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