Enhanced exergetic analysis of an olive oil refining plant: evaluation of the first and second level of exergy destructions

Abstract

Enhanced exergy analysis is built up as a novel modality to specify the origins of irreversibilities and to concentrate substantial improvement potential of components. The scope of this paper is to apply the enhanced exergy analysis to an olive oil refinery plant operated in Izmir, Turkey, that is conducted for the first time to agree the first level (endogenous/exogenous) and the second level (combination of the endogenous/exogenous and unavoidable/avoidable parts studied before) of destructions for exposing substantial efficiencies. Results showed that the components in the plant mostly have endogenous exergy destructions. Besides, the distillation unit has the highest endogenous exergy destruction value of 150.9 kW as the avoidable and unavoidable endogenous sections are 76.85 and 74.08 kW, respectively. Furthermore, the shell and tube economiser has the highest modified (enhanced) exergetic efficiency of 99.9% while the modified performances of plate-heat exchanger and pump (VII) are calculated as 73% and 71.24%, respectively.