Strategy for Integrated Use of the Industrial Waste Heat

Abstract

The domestic industrial sector uses over 32 quads of energy that represents one-third of the total energy consumed annually in United States of America. Energy consumption details can be found at www.eia.doe.gov/aer/. Obviously, that the efficient use of available energy has a substantial impact on the competitiveness of domestic manufacturers as well as on the environment. Efficient conversion of raw materials into usable products and usable work/energy strictly depends on the commercially available technologies and equipment. Energy efficiency significantly varies across multiple industries and different applications but one of the major energy losses is thermal energy loss, so-called waste heat. Sources of the waste heat comprise of variety of gaseous exhausts, waste process liquids, cooling media, chemical waste and environmental losses. Over 30 years the engineering community has been trying to develop cost-effective approaches for waste heat recovery and utilization. However, so far there is no universal and cost-effective solution or approach for the industrial waste heat recovery and utilization. In this paper authors discuss an integrated strategy of the industrial waste heat use through the consideration of the closest surrounding of the waste heat source and other types of waste (chemical, mechanical, acoustical, etc.) along with most promising heat exchanger design concepts to be appropriate for integrated waste heat recovery and utilization.