Water Source Diagram Research Articles

Application of the water sources diagram in sugar and ethanol-producing plants

Application of the water sources diagram in sugar and ethanol-producing plants

Water consumption and wastewater generation minimization in an oil refinery applying water sources diagram

Water consumption and wastewater generation minimization in an oil refinery applying water sources diagram

Developing Water Source Diagram method for effective utilization of regeneration unit in water networks: Multiple-contaminant problems

Despite being well disseminated, most algorithmic-algebraic methods of process integration still have gaps in the issue of multiple contaminants, especially when it comes to situations that include regeneration. To fill this gap, a new approach using Water Source Diagram in water systems covering fixed load problems and fixed flow rate problems with multiple contaminants and considering regeneration recycling is proposed in the present research. Algorithmic-algebraic methods for modifying water networks, considering the addition of regeneration units, should be designed in such a way as to suit the requirements of water-consuming operations and with the least increase in the costs. Three examples from the literature have been solved using the proposed algorithm, and the results obtained are comparable to those obtained in the literature using algebraic and mathematical methods. Also, the solution is defined in such a way that if an industrial unit wants to use a treatment plant to reduce freshwater consumption, three major factors are determined: a) the optimal post-regeneration concentration, b) the minimum regenerated water flow rate, and c) the appropriate water sources to be regenerated.

Application of an integrated methodology for the synthesis of water networks and wastewater treatment in the pulp and paper industry / Aplicação de uma metodologia integrada para síntese de redes de água e tratamento de efluentes na indústria de papel e celulose

The increase in the costs of water and wastewater treatment makes it relevant to develop tools that allow the efficient use of water in the industry, aiming at reduce costs and respecting the disposal limits imposed by the legislation. Thus, the objective of this work is to apply an integrated methodology for the synthesis and analysis of water networks and industrial wastewaters, combining the Wastewater Sources Diagram (WWSD) method with the results of the Water Sources Diagram (WSD) to the data representative of the pulp and paper industry. A case study considering the relevant contaminants present in the wastewaters from this process was carried out. The wastewater treatment network generated with the WWSD reduced the need for wastewater treatment by 35.20%, allowing lower costs and environmental impacts.

Cooling water sources diagram

Recirculating cooling water systems are used to absorb heat in the heat exchanger network, usually operating in a parallel configuration and returning water to the cooling tower with a higher temperature. This configuration receives the fresh cooling water directly without any previous reuse. While this configuration is simple to operate, it leads to inefficient use of the cooling water. On the other hand, a series configuration can reduce the cooling water flow rate, but the complex arrangement and sometimes thermodynamic restrictions lead to higher operational costs. This paper proposes simplifying the network structure through a series-parallel configuration and determines the minimum water flow rate in the cooling system without affecting the heat load removal from the process heat exchangers, using the Cooling Water Sources Diagram (CWSD). Minimizing water consumption and increasing the water return temperature lead to an improvement in the cooling tower's efficiency, which reduces its operational cost. One case study with different scenarios is presented to cover several cooling system characteristics to demonstrate the proposed new tool's applicability and efficiency. The results are compatible with those observed in the literature, being superior in some cases, either in terms of cost values or generating different possible networks.

Water reuse at the pulp and paper industry using water source diagram

One of the main issues in the present and upcoming decades is the improvement of natural resource use efficiencies. The industrial use of water is preferred as a target for the implementation of sustainable models of water management with the purpose of reducing the use of this resource and generates less waste. This study aims the application of the Water Source Diagram (WSD) method in paper industry, typology associated to high wastewater generation, as a potential strategy to achieve sustainable industrial processes through wastewater reuse. Operational data from paper industry were provided by previous works. Two scenarios of freshwater consumption were generated to model the system. Both cases showed that the freshwater consumption may be reduced over 30.22%, in relation to the baseline of no reuse. The efficiency of the WSD was also compared to other results reported in the literature. Although economic evaluation has not been addressed in this work, the method could be considered as a strategic tool for decision making.

Water Sources Diagram and Its Applications

Water Sources Diagram (WSD) has proved to be one of the most efficient methods to reduce industrial freshwater consumption and to provide a minimum amount of wastewater to be treated. Different types of industry have been benefited from the use of this technique, which resulted in great savings in the design of the effluent treatment systems. Among the successful case studies, we mention herein applications in systems with wastewater treatment, thermal and water plants’ integration, oil refineries, petrochemicals, batch processes, pulp and paper plants, and textile plants. The degree of WSD maturity motivated researchers to not only improve WSD algorithms, but also extend the concept of the Sources Diagram to Source/Sink types of process. This paper presents a background of WSD progress as well as insights into future perspectives using the Sources Diagrams’ concept.

Water sources diagram method in systems with multiple contaminants in fixed flowrate and fixed load processes

Developed to deal with water allocation problems (WAP), the Water Source Diagram (WSD) method is here extended to be used in problems involving fixed flowrate operations in multiple contaminant processes, as well as processes formulated by the source and sink point of view. Therefore the WSD becomes a complete methodology to solve WAPs without regenerating operations focusing maximum water reuse. To illustrate the performance of the proposed extension, two case studies handling hybrid systems from the pulp and paper industry are presented, including industrial data from a Brazilian pulp and paper plant. The WSD results are also compared with other author's proposals, showing good performance.

Extension of the water sources diagram method to systems with simultaneous fixed flowrate and fixed load processes

In this article, the water source diagram (WSD) (Gomes et al., 2007) is extended to the design of water networks involving both fixed flowrate and fixed contaminant load, as well as water loss/gain operations. The algorithm targets minimum external water consumption while simultaneously synthesizing the corresponding water system structure. In addition, it is shown that the WSD can be applied to water allocation problems (WAP) based only on water sources and sinks, maintaining its good performance. To illustrate the methodology, case studies handling hybrid water system are presented, including a zero wastewater discharge discussion and data from a Brazilian pulp mill.

Water Sources Diagram in Multiple Contaminant Industrial Case Studies: Adoption of a Decomposition Approach

The use of water in industrial processes has become an important issue over the last 20 years, and then the optimization of water reuse considering multiple contaminants has gained great attention. This paper presents a new approach for the algorithmic procedure Water Sources Diagram (WSD), which is developed to be applied in large multiple contaminants water allocation problems (WAPs). In the WSD procedure, the reference contaminant definition is a key step and often leads to cumbersome calculations in following steps to get the final network from an intermediate structure, which is obtained based on the reference contaminant. The proposed new approach reduces the importance of the reference contaminant choice, simplifying the following calculations by adopting a decomposition strategy. It is applied in two large process plant examples, and the results show a good performance of the new approach.

Process integration for industrial water reuse: A case study from a Brazilian biodiesel commercial plant

This paper presents a case study of process integration for a Brazilian biodiesel commercial plant water reuse by using the P+WATER method coupled with Water Sources Diagram (WSD). The process flow diagram of biodiesel plant was simulated considering different operation conditions for transesterification unit, the biodiesel refining unit, and the glycerol recovery unit. WSD was employed to select the main scenarios of waste stream reuse. Statistical techniques were applied to assess the operation cost of each scenario and the respective opportunity to reduce the water consumption by water reuse. The most promising scenarios of waste stream reuse were compared using the P+WATER method to evaluate the opportunity of being really introduced in the industrial plant.

English

An important area in process integration is the development of methodologies to minimize water and energy use in industry. More than 20 % of the energy consumption in industry is associated with cooling and heating water. This paper presents analysis and optimization of a re-circulating cooling water system, with the aim to satisfy any supply conditions for the cooling tower. The part of the atmospheric crude oil distillation unit was chosen for analysis and synthesis of cooling water systems by the Kim and Smith design (KSD) method. The load of the cooling tower and the cost related to the cooling water system could be reduced by modifying the configuration of the heat exchanger network. In this paper, the KSD methodology for a developed heat exchanger network is expanded with the principle based on the heuristic algorithmic water sources diagram procedure (WSD) to synthesize the mass exchange network. These procedures are advantageous compared with other methodologies since hand calculation is used, a very useful feature for process engineers. The cooling water network was synthesized, leading to a 40 % reduction in cooling tower load, and consequently, lower operating costs and water consumption.

Water Sources Diagram in Multiple Contaminant Processes: Maximum Reuse

Water scarcity, rising energy costs, and stricter regulations on disposal of industrial effluents have forced a focus on the water usage in process plants. In this context, the development of methodologies to analyze the possibility of water reuse in industrial processes, considering the presence of multiple contaminants, has became an important issue for process engineers. There are a great variety of methods to deal with this problem, and they can be divided in two groups: algorithmic methods and mathematical programming methods. The problem with multiple contaminants becomes more complex, and the available algorithmic procedures are sometimes cumbersome; the methodologies based on mathematical programming present complex formulation and solving algorithms. This paper presents an extension of the algorithmic procedure water source diagram (WSD) to multiple contaminant processes. The proposed extended WSD procedure synthesizes water mass exchange networks for multiple contaminant processes, focusing on w...

Conservação e reúso de águas usando o método Diagrama de Fontes de Água para processos em batelada: estudo de casos

The water resources management has been an important factor for the sustainability of industrial processes, since there is a growing need for the development of methodologies aimed at the conservation and rational use of water. The objective of this work was to apply the heuristic-algorithmic method called Water Sources Diagram (WSD), which is used to define the target of minimum water consumption, to batch processes. Scenarios with reuse of streams were generated and evaluated with application of the method from the data of water quantity and concentration of contaminants in the operations. Two case studies aiming to show the reduction of water consumption and wastewater generation, and final treatment costs besides investment in storage tanks, were presented. The scenarios showed great promising, achieving reduction up to 45% in water consumption and wastewater generation, and a reduction of around 37% on cost of storage tanks, without the need to allocate regeneration processes. Thus, the WSD method showed to be a relevant and flexible alternative regarding to systemic tools aimed at minimizing the consumption of water in industrial processes, playing an important role within a program of water resources management.

Water Reuse and Wastewater Minimization in Chemical Industries Using Differentiated Regeneration of Contaminants

There is currently a great demand for tools that allow the analysis of water networks in a practical and objective way. In the modern scenarios chemical industries need to consume water in more rational forms to minimize the risk of water scarcity caused by pollution. Some of the alternatives for reducing water consumption involve the reuse and/or recycling of wastewater, such as the methodology based on the water source diagram (WSD), which is a flexible and dynamic alternative approach to generating viable scenarios for the management of water networks. In this study the implementation of the WSD to support the optimization software (GAMS) in a process of differentiated regeneration is studied, treating the operation of a chemical process of interest in an objective and systemic way. The method can be applied to resource networks with multiple impurities, even when the utility contains impurities. The possibilities for maximum reuse of water and differentiated effluent regeneration are studied, aiming t...

The modified water source diagram method applied to reuse of textile industry continuous washing water

Effluents generated by textile processes are complex matrices which have a considerable polluting potential, with a high organic load, accentuated color and toxic chemical compounds which have a significant impact on the environment. Reducing the volume of effluents through direct reuse or using purification processes, without affecting the quality of the finished product, constitutes a great challenge to the textile industry. In this context, this study focuses on reducing the consumption of industrial water through the reuse of continuous washing water in the textile industry. To this aim, a methodology based on the water source diagram (WSD) method was developed, taking the fabric flow as a reference and applying the concept of pseudo-concentration at the inlet and outlet of the tank units of the continuous washing process. The results obtained in a case study demonstrated the efficiency of the application of the proposed methodology, where an alternative was generated with a 64% reduction in the water consumption.

Design of Mass Exchange Network and Effluent Distribution System for effective water management

The environmental impact of industrial wastewater and higher cost of fresh water are the serious challenges faced by the process industries. It has led to the development of many new techniques to minimize fresh water consumption. Of the many approaches, which have been developed, the Water Source Diagram (WSD) is a flexible and dynamic alternative for the generation of different scenarios for the management of water networks with reduction in total consumption. In the present study WSD concept was coupled with water mains concept to mains simplify the piping network and reduce the cost. A new procedure was developed for integrating the effluent treatment processes to evolve Effluent Treatment Network. Example from literature having multi contaminants was considered. This simple procedure involving hand calculations will be a useful tool for process engineers to design water and effluent treatment networks. Also the WSD and ETN were combined to form an evolutionary WAMEN (Water Allocation and Mass Exchange Network) and the proposed WAMEN aims for minimum fresh water consumption.

Application of Water Source Diagram (WSD) method for the reduction of water consumption in petroleum refineries

The chemical, petrochemical, textile and paper and cellulose industries consume great quantities of water and there is an ever increasing demand to minimize this consumption as natural water resources become scarcer. Also, the tendency for the cost of water and of effluent treatment to increase, due to new restrictions regarding discharges to the environment, has led to the necessity to minimize industrial water consumption, increasingly favoring the development of new methodologies for the optimization of the use of these resources. Of the many approaches which have been developed, the Water Source Diagram (WSD) is highlighted since it offers a flexible and dynamic alternative for the generation of different scenarios for the management of water networks with the reduction of consumption. In this study, the implementation of the method in a petroleum refinery with six operations which consume water, where four contaminants are present with different permissible input values for each operation, is investigated. The cases of maximum water reuse, regenerative end-of-pipe treatment and differentiated regeneration were studied. In the differentiated regeneration system, there was an important reduction in the water consumption, with a recycle rate of 37.93 ton/h in regenerator 2 and 14.02 in regenerator 3. It was observed that with the application of the WSD method the water consumption was substantially reduced, in some cases obtaining a reduction in water consumption greater than those reported in the literature.

Design procedure for water/wastewater minimization: single contaminant

Development of methodologies to minimize water use in industries has become an important area in Process Integration due to an increase in environmental awareness, at the cost of fresh water, of effluent treatment and disposal. In this context, this paper presents a heuristic algorithmic procedure, water source diagram procedure (WSD), to synthesize water mass-exchange networks for the following different situations: (i) water re-use; (ii) availability of multiple external water sources in the industrial plant; (iii) water losses along the process; (iv) flowrate constraints; (v) regeneration before re-use in other operations; and (vi) regeneration followed by recycling. WSD is a new tool presented as part of the approach and allow that example networks are also created. It was applied in a single contaminant example case, and it can easily be extended to multiple contaminant processes. This new procedure has advantageous features when compared to other available methodologies. Among them the procedure uses hand calculations, a very useful feature for process engineers.