APPLICATION OF PINCH TECHNOLOGY IN WATER

RESOURCE MANAGEMENT TO REDUCE WATER USE

AND WASTEWATER GENERATION FOR AN AREA

KJ Strauss

WRC Report No. 1241/1/06

Water Research Commission

 APPLICATION OF PINCH TECHNOLOGY IN WATER
RESOURCE MANAGEMENT TO REDUCE WATER USE AND
WASTEWATER GENERATION FOR AN AREA

Report to the
Water Research Commission

by

KJ Strauss

on behalf of

CSIR M&Mtek

WRC Report No. 1241/1/06

ISBN No. 1-77005-488-X

NOVEMBER 2006
 DISCLAIMER
This report has been reviewed by the Water Research Commission (WRC) and
approved for publication. Approval does not signify that the contents necessarily
reflect the views and policies of the WRC, nor does mention of trade names or
commercial products consitute endorsement or recommendation for use.
 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION

It has been indicated by DWAF that the Grootdraai catchment will soon experience severe
water shortages as domestic, industrial and agricultural water use increases. It is, therefore,
important to develop a systematic strategy or plan to reduce the amount of water used in the
area, as well as the wastewater generated.

Pinch technology has been successfully applied in improving thermal efficiencies in the
chemical and process industries over the last 15 years. This has been through the re-
arrangement of heat sources and sinks to optimise the overall thermal efficiency of the
process. By taking advantage of certain parallels between the principles of heat and mass
transfer, the systematic design procedures of pinch technology have been extended to
address the problems of water use and wastewater generation. The overall goal is to reduce
the amounts of water used and wastewater generated, with no detrimental effects to the
process. The options are the re-use of water in different operations; regeneration and re-
use; or regeneration and recycling. Freshwater and wastewater flows are reduced in each
case, and in the latter two cases the contaminant load of the wastewater is also reduced.

The application of pinch technology in the reduction of freshwater use and wastewater
reduction has already been done on a number of plants and processes internationally as
well as in South Africa. Some of these applications have been for industrial complexes
where a number of plants were considered and an overall water use optimisation has been
conducted.

Therefore the approach of applying pinch technology over a larger area may not necessarily
be a novel one, the application of pinch for a multi-sectoral and multi-users application is.

OBJECTIVES

Following the submission of a research proposal to the Water Research Commission in

2000, the project titled "The Application of Pinch Technology in Water Resource
Management to reduce water use and wastewater generation for an area" was approved.

The objectives of the project were as follows:

• Develop an inventory of water users and wastewater generators in the Highveld
Ridge area
• Application of a water pinch technology model that optimises the water use and
wastewater generation in the area.

in
 PART I - OVERVIEW

WATER DEMAND MANAGEMENT AND PINCH TECHNOLOGY

Water scarcity has been identified as a driver of implementing new technologies for water
use as well as re-use, recycling and regeneration options. However, there are other drivers
for initiating water and wastewater saving initiatives. Hall (1997) identified the following
water and wastewater reduction drivers:
• Economics
• Regulation and compliance
• Corporate waste reduction goals
• Regional water shortages/resource limitations
• Site infrastructure barriers

The increased awareness of dangers to the environment due to over extraction of water, the
importance of environmental protection and tougher environmental legislation are further
driving forces towards reductions in water consumption and wastewater generation.

The scarcity of good quality industrial water and the stricter discharge regulations have
resulted in higher costs for fresh water and the treatment of wastewater respectively. This
requires capital expenditure with little or no productive return and there is now considerable
economic incentive to reduce both fresh water consumption and wastewater generation.
This has impacted all types of industries including chemical processing, paper and pulp,
manufacturing, petrochemical and electricity generation industries.

The prime objective of pinch technology is to achieve financial savings in the process
industries by optimising the ways in which process utilities, namely energy and water, are
applied for a wide variety of purposes. Pinch Technology does this by making an inventory
of all producers and consumers of these utilities and then systematically designing an
optimal scheme of utility exchange between these producers and consumers.

Pinch Technology provides a method to solve complex multi-stream energy and water
integration problems. The technology has provided a rigorous means of analysing
processes. It is based on sources and sinks, and the approach of reuse, recycle and
regeneration, and combinations of these. The pinch approach not only sets targets but also
recommends appropriate network design changes, which maximize the re-use of
water/energy.

IV
 PART II

WATER PINCH AND CATCHMENT MODELLING

There are numerous activities that affect both the quantity and quality of water in a
catchment. The activities meet their water requirements by drawing from the surface bodies
and/or groundwater. The effluents generated through these activities are returned to the
same system, creating a cycle of use with external inputs and outputs. The major inputs into
a catchment are rainfall and inflow from other catchments. Inflow from other catchments can
be in the form of surface bodies (e.g. rivers) and groundwater from an upstream catchment,
as well as artificial mediums such as canals and pipelines. The major outputs from a
catchment are evaporation, transpiration and outflow to other catchments. Outflows to other
catchments can be in the form of surface bodies {i.e. rivers and streams) and groundwater
to a downstream catchment, as well as artificial mediums such as canals and pipelines.

The increased demand from users and the increased number of users has decreased the
availability of water and also the quality of the available water in the Grootdraai catchment.
The water in an area has to be managed in such a way that it is not detrimental to the other
users, especially downstream users. For a catchment, as mentioned previously, there is a
limited supply. The abstraction of water and the release of effluent must be managed in a
sustainable way.

The following measures are used to manage the limited water resources available in a
catchment:
• The variation in the quantity of water that enters and leaves a catchment can be
controlled with the building of reservoirs.
• Water use can be regulated by means of permitting, where a user is given the
authority to draw a limited amount of water per unit time. These permits can also be
applied to the release of effluent, where the volumes and quality of the water
released is regulated.
• Close monitoring of the water quality at selected points.

The water pinch model developed by Mr. C. Brouckaert (referred to as the "model") from the
University of Natal, Durban was used for this study. The decision was taken to use TDS only
for the case study, with the focus on whether water pinch can successfully be applied to a
catchment situation. It is important that the modelled situation closely resembles the actual
situation in the catchment, while at the same time falling within the constraints of the model
programmed in the MATLAB computer package.

The model follows a plant set-up, which is made up of different processes and operations,
which have specific water requirements. The input requirements for the different users are in
the form of a source, processes and sinks.
A comparison between water pinch and a catchment situation highlights the limitations with
the application of pinch to a catchment situation. The limitations listed include the following
factors:
• Distance and altitude difference between "processes"
• Limits and varied supply of the water source
• Limits posed by the sensitivities of the surrounding ecological environment
• The effects of groundwater and its movement
• The effects of evaporation and transpiration

In addition to the limitations listed above, the data available for representation of a
catchment situation is limited. Comparing a typical production facility with a catchment under
the listed model data requirements shows this:
• Sources - catchments have numerous sources that are highly variable, data
indicating the fate of water that enters the catchment is scarce.
• Processes - catchments have numerous users with different types of water
requirements, uses and releases. Data for water losses in non-industrial users is
poorly known.
• Sinks - include evaporation and transpiration that varies from site to site depending
on numerous factors and are poorly known.

To model the catchment, a process of data gathering and identification of gaps in the data
needs to be undertaken. The gaps can then be filled through water balances across the
various systems in operation in the catchments as well as the catchment itself. The case
study on the Grootdraai catchment shows a possible approach.

VI
 PART

CASE STUDY- GROOTDRAAI CATCHMENT

The Grootdraai catchment is located in the Industrial Highveld, which forms part of
Mpumalanga Province. The catchment has a surface area of 7924 km 2 and forms part of the
Upper-Vaal reach. One major river, the Upper Vaal, drains the catchment, with no rivers or
streams entering the catchment. All streams within the catchment drain into the Grootdraai
dam, which is located at the western boundary.

The major users in the catchment draw their water from the Grootdraai dam. The water
available for these uses is therefore dependent on the availability of water in the dam. The
Grootdraai dam has a capacity of 364 million m3. The diagram below gives a graphic
representation of the water demand from the dam:

DAM OUTLET
(SINK)

TRANSFERS TO
EXTERNAL
DAM INLET GROOTDRAAI
USERS
(SOURCE) DAM
A (SINK)

USERS

LOSSES
EVAPORATION, TRANSPIRATION,
GROUNDWATER, SEEPAGE
(SINK)

VII
Information on the users drawing from the dam, with their current demand from the dam and
releases back into the system, are provided in the table below:

Overview of water demand and return by the users

USER DEMAND RETURN
3
(m /year) (m3/year)
Irrigation 321 500 -
Tutuka Power Station 47 420 000 -
Matla Power Station 53 838 000 -
SASOL 91 250 000 4 015 000*
Ermelo Municipality 3 600 000 1 982 124
Bethal Municipality 5 420 250 3 011 250
Thuthukane Township 1 427 556 642 400
TOTAL 203 277 306 9 650 774
• Released outside the catchment

The application of the pinch model yielded results that showed that in principle all the waste
water of the different users could be re-used, thereby reducing the demand on the dam by
the total of the currently released waste waster. The inflow to the dam would also be
reduced, as part of the waste water is currently released up-fiow from the dam. Due to the
limited availability of input information that was required for the model, it was not possible for
the model to optimise the allocation of the waste water streams to the users. It appeared
that the outcome of the model was effectively a random allocation to the users.

A spread sheet calculation was carried out, which showed that the waste water can indeed
be allocated to the different users without infringing on the requirements of the users in
terms of maximum allowed inlet TDS. All individual users could take a part or all of the total
waste water. Without further constraints e.g. the cost to transport the waste water or
additional costs for treatment by the user, there was no preference to allocate the waste
water to a specific user. This result confirmed the outcome of the model.

The following conclusions were reached:

• The available information from the users (inlet and outlet quantities of water and
requirements for inlet and outlet TDS) were not optimal input information for the
model to optimise the allocation of the waste streams to different users and therefore
the model output was closer to a random allocation.
• There are large differences between a catchment and a plant situation for which the
model was designed, and in order to use a water pinch type model for a catchment,
considerable changes to the current model would likely be required.

VIII
 • The modelling as well as the spreadsheet calculation showed that in terms of TDS
inlet requirements all waste water could be re-used by the main water users.
• The study catchment area may not be representative for other catchments for two
reasons. In this particular catchment, only a small percentage of the inlet water is
released as waste water, due to the presence of industries that evaporate most water
as part of their processes. Also, another aspect of this type of industry is that most of
the TDS in the inlet water is not returned to the surface water of the catchment, but
becomes part of ash disposal sites.

As good water management is important for South Africa in general and more specifically in
catchments such as the Grootdraaidam catchment, where water demand is likely to exceed
water supply in the future, it is recommended to investigate the development of a model that
can reliably simulate all the important aspects of a catchment and thereby help to reduce
water use by optimising the allocation of waste water to different users. This model should
be based upon the principles of water pinch, but would probably be substantially different
from existing models.

DC
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Ill

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES XIII

GLOSSARY OF ACRONYMS XIV

1 INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 MOTIVATION 1
1.2 OBJECTIVES 2
1.3 BACKGROUND 2
2 LITERATURE SURVEY 4
2.1 WATER DEMAND MANAGEMENT 4
2.2 PINCH TECHNOLOGY 5
3 CATCHMENT MANAGEMENT 9
3.1 OVERVIEW 9
3.2 NATURAL ACTIVITIES 10
3.3 MANAGEMENT OF USE 11
4 WATER PINCH AND CATCHMENT MANAGEMENT 12
4.1 WATER PINCH MODEL 12
4.2 MODEL REQUIREMENTS 14
4.3 MODEL LIMITATIONS 15
4.4 CATCHMENT DATA LIMITATIONS 16
5 GROOTDRAAI CATCHMENT 18

6 HYDROLOGY 19
6.1 GROOTDRAAI DAM 19
6.2 MODEL INPUT 20
7 AGRICULTURAL USE 28
7.1 MODEL INPUT 30
8 INDUSTRIAL USE 32
8.1 ESKOM[17] 32
8.2 SASOL[18] 33
8.3 MODEL INPUT 34

XI
9 MUNICIPALITIES 36
9.1 MODEL INPUT 37
10 MODEL APPLICATION 39

11 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 42

12 CONCLUSION 45

13 RECOMMENDATIONS 45

14 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 46

REFERENCES 47

APPENDIX: MATHEMATICAL PROGRAMMING APPROACH TO WATER PINCH

ANALYSIS 50

XII
 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Page
Figure 2.1Typical composite curve 5
Figure 2.2 Pinch design grid 6
Figure 2.3 Concentration/mass flow composite curves 6
Figure 3.1 Catchment Graphic 10
Figure 4.1 A water using process 12
Figure 4.2 The superstructure for a simple 2-process network 12
Table 4.1 Pinch vs. Catchment Management 15
Table 4.2 Comparison between a production facility and a catchment 16
Figure 5.1 Catchment Layout 18
Table 6.1 Water quality of Grootdraai dam 19
Figure 6.1 Grootdraai System 21
Fig 6.2 Grootdraai dam system 22
Fig 6.3 Dam inlet and outlet 24
Figure 6.4 Inflow into dam at Goedgeluk measuring station 25
Table 6.2 Grootdraai dam users 25
Figure 6.5: Modelled Grootdraai Dam 27
Table 7.1 Extraction volumes of Agriculture 28
Table 7.2 Selected SAWQG for Livestock Watering and Irrigation 29
Figure 7.1 Water balance for Agriculture 30
Figure 7.2 Modelled Agriculture 31
Table 8.1 Grootdraai Dam Power Station Water Consumers 32
Table 8.2 ESKOM additional requirements 33
Figure 8.1 Modelled Industrial Users 34
Table 9.1: Municipal wastewater releases [1] 36
Table 9.2 Municipal water use 37
Figure 9.1 Modelled municipal users 37
Table 10.1 Model Input 39
Fig 10.1 Intake and outlet volumes 40
Table 11.1 Results for fixed concentration 42
Table 11.2 Results for fixed mass loads 43
Table: 11.3 Spreadsheet allocation of waste water to users 44

XIII
GLOSSARY OF ACRONYMS

ACRONYMS

CSIR Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research

DWAF Department of Water affairs and Forestry

HENS Heat Exchange Network Synthesis

LP Linear Programming

MEN Mass Exchange Network

MENS Mass Exchange Network Synthesis

MIP Mixed Integer Programming

MILP Mixed Integer Linear Programming

MINLP Mixed Integer Non-linear Programming

MSA Mass Separating Agent

NLP Non-linear Programming

SAWQG South African Water Quality Guidelines

TDS Total Dissolved Solids

WDM Water Demand Management

WRC Water Research Commission

ZLED Zero Liquid Effluent Discharge

XIV
 PART I - OVERVIEW

1 INTRODUCTION

The CSIR has been commissioned by the Water Research Commission to

conduct a Pinch Technology study in water resource management. The aim of the
study is to reduce water use and wastewater generation for the Grootdraai
catchment area. There is a large number of multiple sector users e.g.
petrochemical industry, electricity generation, mining, farming and increasing
domestic water use in this area.

1.1 MOTIVATION

It has been indicated that the proposed area of study will soon experience severe
water shortages as domestic, industrial and agricultural water use increases [1]. It
is therefore important to develop a systematic strategy or plan to reduce the
amount of water used in the area, as well as the wastewater generated.

Pinch technology has been successfully applied in improving thermal efficiencies

in the chemical and process industries over the last 15 years. This has been
through the re-arrangement of heat sources and sinks to optimise the overall
thermal efficiency of the process. By taking advantage of certain parallels between
the principles of heat and mass transfer, the systematic design procedures of
pinch technology have been extended to address the problems of water use and
wastewater generation [2]. The overall goal is to reduce the amounts of water
used and wastewater generated, with no detrimental effects to the process. The
options are the re-use of water in different operations; regeneration and re-use; or
regeneration and recycling. Freshwater and wastewater flows are reduced in each
case, and in the latter two cases the contaminant load of the wastewater is also
reduced.

The application of pinch technology in the reduction of freshwater use and

wastewater reduction has already been done on a number of plants and
processes internationally [3] as well as in South Africa [4]. Some of these
applications have been for industrial complexes where a number of plants were
considered and an overall water use optimisation has been conducted.

Therefore the approach of applying pinch technology over a larger area may not
necessarily be a novel one, the application of pinch for a multi-sectoral and multi-
users application is.
 1.2 OBJECTIVES

Following the submission of a research proposal to the Water Research

Commission in 2000, the project titled T h e Application of Pinch Technology in
Water Resource Management to reduce water use and wastewater generation for
an area" was approved.

The objectives of the project were as follows:

• Develop an inventory of water users and wastewater generators in the
Highveld Ridge area
• Application of a water pinch technology model that optimises the water use
and wastewater generation in the area.

1.3 BACKGROUND

One of the greatest challenges to be faced in the 21 s t century is developing an

innovative strategy to avert serious local and regional water scarcities, and to meet
the rapidly growing demand for water. This includes addressing the issues of
quality, equity and incentives for both water managers and users. Because water
is a key life-supporting resource, its scarcity can have far reaching implications.

South Africa is characterized by erratic and unevenly distributed rainfall. As

regional populations continue to grow, so does the demand for water by all
sectors. A regional (Southern Africa) study on water demand management (WDM)
was undertaken by the IUCN [5] in recognition of the importance of water to the
region and the fact that supply-side approaches alone are inadequate to address
the region's water challenges. One of the critical outcomes of the study was that
WDM is not yet an intrinsic part of water resource planning and management in
Southern Africa.

The motivation for the study was the view that if water resource management is to
be sustainable and socially efficient it needs to move away from a historical
emphasis on simply developing new supplies to meet projected water needs. The
emphasis on supply solutions has led to inefficient use of water resources, over-
capitalisation in infrastructure, and environmental damage, and yet has still not
provided water security to the region.

The study identified the following factors driving WDM in the region:
• Growing divergence between demand and supply - demand is increasing
due to increasing population and income growth, but supply is fixed by
natural constraints and limited by financial ones.
• Increasing supply costs as countries are forced to look further a field for
new water sources;
 • Increasing fiscal restraint resulting from externally structural adjustment
programmes i.e. sharper focus on the financial sustainability of public
utilities, on the removal of subsidies, and on cost recovery from consumers.
• Increased potential for WDM - through access to technology and
economics of scale in urban areas
• Regional water security and risk aversion - WDM offers an alternative to
moving further a field to source water and avoids exposure to risk and
potential regional conflict.

The study also went on to identify a range of measures that have been used to
modify the demand for water. These are:
• Economic measures (e.g. use of pricing policies - block tariff systems),
• Regulations (e.g. use of permits for water use),
• Education and awareness raising (e.g. public awareness strategies),
• Technology improvements (e.g. efficient water use equipment, improved
irrigation systems),
• Water loss control (i.e. control of unaccounted-for water), and
• Water re-use and recycling (e.g. re-use of mining water, recycling of
municipal wastewater).

It is therefore proposed that pinch technology be used as a means of assessing

the potential for water re-use, recycling and regeneration in a water stressed area
(catchment). If the application of pinch technology for water use management
proves to be successful, then we have another tool for WDM.
2 LITERATURE SURVEY

2.1 WATER DEMAND MANAGEMENT

Water scarcity has been identified as a driver of implementing new technologies

for water use as well as re-use, recycling and regeneration options. However there
are other drivers for initiating water and wastewater saving initiatives. Hall [6]
identified the following water and wastewater reduction drivers:
• Economics - Hall referred to a study conducted by the US Centre for Waste
Reduction Technologies where it was found that 75% of respondents cited
economics as the reason for implementing a water/effluent minimization
programme. It was proposed that increasing fresh water and effluent
discharge costs are prompting companies to look for means to save on
water use and effluent discharge thereby saving costs.
• Regulation and compliance - regulations can stipulate the quantity and
sometimes quality of wastewater discharged by a company. Companies
have to ensure that their releases comply with regulatory requirements.
• Corporate waste reduction goals - some companies set tough goals for
wastewater reduction which go beyond discharge consent limits, as there is
still the possibility of environmental impact from their wastewater.
• Regional water shortages/resource limitations - this is generally manifested
in terms of charges, legislation and compliance. There may not be enough
capacity in the piping and distribution system, or local treatment works may
limit effluent loading. Regional natural based water shortages have been
previously discussed.
• Site infrastructure barrier - Plant water systems are generally already
complex due to years of plant modifications. There may be opportunities to
make better use of the existing equipment and even improve the water
quality.

The increased awareness of dangers to the environment due to over extraction of

water (P Castro et al) [4], the importance of environmental protection (VR Dhole et
al) [7] and tougher environmental legislation (Schaareman et al., P Tripathi, R
Hamilton, Cripps) [8; 9; 10; 11] are further driving forces towards reductions in
water consumption and wastewater generation.

Another important driver towards water demand management as mentioned above

are the economic aspects. The scarcity of good quality industrial water and the
stricter discharge regulations has resulted in higher costs for fresh water and the
treatment of wastewater respectively (Alva-Argaez et al) [12]. This requires capital
expenditure with little or no productive return and there is now considerable
economic incentive to reduce both fresh water consumption and wastewater
generation (R Smith, E Petela) [13]. This has impacted all types of industries
including chemical processing, paper and pulp, manufacturing, petrochemical and
electricity generation industries.

2.2 PINCH TECHNOLOGY

The prime objective of pinch technology is to achieve financial savings in the

process industries by optimising the ways in which process utilities, namely:
energy and water are applied for a wide variety of purposes. Pinch Technology
does this by making an inventory of all producers and consumers of these utilities
and then systematically designing an optimal scheme of utility exchange between
these producers and consumers.

Pinch Technology provides a method to solve complex multi-stream energy and

water integration problems. The technology has provided a rigorous means of
analysing processes. It is based on sources and sinks, and the approach of reuse,
recycle and regeneration, and combinations of these. The pinch approach not only
sets targets but also recommends appropriate network design changes, which
maximize the re-use of water/energy.

Pinch Technology is a systematic method of process analysis and design, which

maximizes use of inherent thermodynamic potential. Thermal (energy) pinch was
developed 20 years ago. The basic premise that heat flows from high to low
temperature led to temperature/energy composition curves, the grid design
method and other key concepts (see Figure 2.1 and 2.2). More recent
water/wastewater pinch and related techniques are based on analogous concepts
of contaminated mass flow vs concentration profiles (see Figure 2.3).

WAT FLOW
Figure 2.1 Typical composite curve
 ue.

HOT

Figure 2.2 Pinch design grid

MASS FLOW

Figure 2.3 Concentration/mass flow composite curves

El-Halwagi and Manousiouthakis (1989) [14] first applied pinch technology to mass
exchange network synthesis (MENS). They introduced the use of a minimum
composition difference, E, which is analogous to the minimum approach
temperature in heat exchanger network synthesis (HENS). They showed how
specifying the value of E locates the mass transfer pinch, which is a
thermodynamic bottleneck for mass transfer between streams. This allows a target
for the minimum flow rate of external mass separating agent (MSA) required by a
network to be determined. This target is analogous to the energy target in HENS.
Avoiding the transfer of mass across the pinch ensures that the MSA target is met
in design.
The implementation of pinch principles to mass exchanging processes was
announced by El-Halwagi and Manousiouthakts (1990) [15] and later extended by
Wang and Smith (1994) [16]. The analysis uses the water concentration profiles of
individual water consuming processes (washing, steam stripping, extraction, etc.).
Individual concentration profiles are combined in so-called Concentration
Composition Curves, which are analogous to the traditional thermal Pinch
Composition Curves. Here the temperature/enthalpy curve is replaced by the
concentration-mass of contaminant composite profile. This composite curve is
matched to a straight line through the origin, which represents a minimum water
supply line. This minimum water supply line touches the composite curve at a
minimum of two points i.e. the origin and one another. The points other than the
origin are known as the Pinch points. Wang and Smith then presented two
methods to achieve minimum flow rate design. The first is referred to as the
maximum driving force method, which uses concentration differences between the
various streams to target the minimum flow rate. The second method is referred to
as the minimum number of water sources method and uses load intervals. In each
interval only enough water is used to maintain network feasibility, the remainder is
by passed and used later. They considered also a case where more that one
contaminant is present and extended their methodology to cover this situation.
They also considered the implications of regeneration of wastewater.

With the application of pinch technology, savings can be achieved in both capital
investment and operating cost. Emissions can be minimised and throughput
maximized.

2.2.1 SINGLE CONTAMINANT, GRAPHICAL APPROACHES TO

PINCH ANALYSIS
Analogies between heat and mass transfer have been used to extend the concept
of pinch analysis to encompass waste minimisation and pollution prevention.
Techniques have been developed in order to design optimal mass exchanger
networks (MEN). These minimum flow rate networks minimise the amount of fresh
water consumed and waste water produced.
El-Halwagi et al. (1989-1997) presented several methodologies for the design of
MENS, pioneering the extension of the pinch analysis from thermal to mass
integration.
Wang and Smith (1994a) developed an approach, which involves the generation
of a single composite curve, which is used to set minimum flow rate targets. The
methods developed allow the designer to identify alternative structures for the
same problem. Wang and Smith also considered the possibility of regenerating
wastewater and presented a conceptually based approach, which distinguishes
between regeneration re-use and regeneration recycling. They later extended this
idea to situations where flow rates are constrained (Wang and Smith, 1995a).
7
 2.2.2 MATHEMATICAL PROGRAMMING APPROACH TO WATER
PINCH ANALYSIS
The graphical approaches considered so far provide many valuable insights to the
water optimisation problems, but become increasingly difficult to apply when
multiple contaminants or special process constraints are involved. They also
cannot deal with optimisation in terms of objective functions, which include factors
other than water use, in particular, economic factors. Previous investigators have
used mathematical programming for mass-transfer networks, (e.g. Takama et al.,
1980; Rossiter and Nath, 1995); the formulation, which corresponds to the water
pinch approach, was set out by Doyle and Smith (1997) and extended by Alva-
Argaez et al (1998). A detailed description of their approach is provided in
Appendix A. The Water Pinch software developed by Dr Chris Brouckaert is
largely based on this approach.
 PART II
WATER PINCH AND CATCHMENT MODELLING

3 CATCHMENT MANAGEMENT
3.1 OVERVIEW
There are numerous activities that affect both the quantity and quality of water in a
catchment. The activities meet their water requirements by drawing from the
surface bodies and/or groundwater. The effluents generated through these
activities are returned to the same system, creating a cycle of use with external
inputs and outputs. The major inputs into a catchment are rainfall and inflow from
other catchments. Inflow from other catchments can be in the form of surface
bodies (e.g., rivers) and groundwater from an upstream catchment, as well as
artificial mediums such as canals and pipelines. The major outputs from a
catchment are evaporation, transpiration and outflow to other catchments.
Outflows to other catchments can be in the form of surface bodies (i.e. rivers and
streams) and groundwater to a downstream catchment, as well as artificial
mediums such as canals and pipelines.

The users within the catchment influence both the volume and quality of water
within the system. Processes that lead to evaporation, transpiration and seepage,
decrease the volume of water in the catchment. Processes that lead to the
addition of pollutant loads to the water, affect the water quality.

Users can be separated into those that directly affect the quality and quantity of
water in the system and those that affect the system indirectly. Users that directly
affect the quality and quantity of water are those that release their effluents in the
form of pipelines that discharge into surface bodies (point source pollution). Users
that indirectly affect the quality and quantity of water are those that release their
pollutants with the aid of runoff and seepage (non-point source pollution).
 The diagram below (Figure 3.1) graphically demonstrates the different processes
that take place in a catchment.

EVAPORATION Non-point Source

RAIN Pollution

Point Source
Pollution

GROUNDWATER

Figure 3.1 Catchment Graphic

3.2 NATURAL ACTIVITIES

As previously mentioned, one of the major sources of water for a catchment is

rainfall. In catchments where there are no rivers flowing into the catchment, rainfall
can be the only source of water. The quantity and quality of water that ends up in
the surface bodies, from rainfall, is dependent on runoff, evaporation and seepage.
Runoff and seepage are interdependent occurrences, and in turn, are dependent
on the following factors:
• Initial moisture content of the soil during a rainfall event
D Soil with a low initial moisture content will absorb more water before
the onset of runoff occurs
• Soil cover and/or soil type
o The type of cover will determine how much water the soil is able to
absorb before the onset of runoff occurs. The soil type determines
the permeability of the soil and therefore the amount of water that
can seep through. It also determines the speed of release of water
from groundwater storage into surface bodies.
• Slope of ground
• Determines the speed at which water flows which also affects the
amount of water the soil is able to absorb.

Intensity of the rainfall

10

L
 D Rainfall with a high intensity allows less time for the soil to absorb
water as compared to rainfall with a low intensity.

Upon reaching the major rivers and streams, the characteristics of the water do
not remain constant. Physical, biological and chemical factors such as settling,
bacterial activity and chemical reactions respectively, significantly change the
characteristics of the water. Added to this, users located along these water bodies
may remove water, as well as, return their effluent, which is a lower quality,
affecting both the quality and quantity of water along these streams.

3.3 MANAGEMENT OF USE

The increased demand from users and the increased number of users has
decreased the availability of water and also the quality of the available water. The
water in an area has to be managed in such a way that it is not detrimental to the
other users, especially downstream users. For a catchment, as mentioned
previously, there is a limited supply. The abstraction of water and the release of
effluent must be managed in a sustainable way.

For sustainability, the following requirements have to be met, in this order:

1. Ecological requirements
2. Human requirements
3. Agricultural and Industrial requirements

The following measures are used to manage the limited water resources available
in a catchment:
• The variation of the quantity of water that enters and leaves a catchment
can be controlled with the building of reservoirs.
• Water use can be regulated by means of permitting, where a user is given
the authority to draw a limited amount of water per unit time. These permits
can also be applied to the release of effluent, where the volumes and
quality of the water released is regulated.
• Close monitoring of the water quality at selected points

11
4 WATER PINCH AND CATCHMENT MANAGEMENT

4.1 WATER PINCH MODEL

The water pinch model developed by Dr. C. Brouckaert (referred to as the "model")
from the University of Natal, Durban was used for this study. What follows is a
brief description of the pinch model.

The basic model of a water-using operation, similar to Wang and Smith's fixed
load model (Figure 4.1) is used, except for the following:
1. An alternative option is considered, where the mass load is allowed to vary
in order to fix the outlet concentration of a contaminant;
2. A water gain or loss is allowed, to model operations such as cooling towers
or evaporators.
Contaminant 6'jn Water

Water in Water out

•
Cjn

Figure 4.1 A water using process

The basic concepts of limiting flows and concentrations, and the relationship
between them via the mass balances, are exactly the same as in Wang and Smith.
To automate the procedure for finding the optimal set of connections between
units, a superstructure for the network is considered (Figure 4.2). This allows, in
principle, all possible connections.

Waste

water

Figure 4.2 The superstructure for a simple 2-process network

12
The balance over process ican be expressed as
Flow balance: Z^ + I^-<5X + Z / V + ^) = 0 (1)
Balance for component n: Y f c + Y F .c,+S =(Yf +YF,+W)C (2)
i k , k

Where
F7y is the flow of reused water from outlet of process ito process j
Fjw is the flow of used water from outlet of process /to sink w
Fjk is the flow of fresh water from source k to inlet of process j
Qn is the concentration of ion n in outlet stream from process I
5in is the mass gain of contaminant n over process I
Wj'is the water gain over process i

Balances of this form exist for each of the P processes and k contaminants in the
system, and can be viewed as the basic set of process constraints. Specific limits
on flows and concentrations, for a particular system, will form additional
constraints.

To complete the formulation, an objective function must be defined to provide the

basis for optimisation. A general form for the objective function was proposed,
representing fixed and variable costs associated with each stream, to be
minimised:

This formulation of the problem has non-linearities in the objective function

(Equation 3) and in the component balances {Equation 2). It should usually be
possible to use a linearised objective function as an approximation, but, in the
case of fixed contaminant loads, the component balances are intrinsically non-
linear. The terms are products of flow rate and concentration, since both are
variables in the same problem. In the case of fixed outlet concentrations, however,
Equation 2 is linear in the flow rates, since the concentrations are then known
constants. Thus, if all processes in the system are of the fixed-outlet-
concentrations type, the problem could be formulated to a linear programming (LP)
optimisation. Although this is an unlikely scenario, it is reasonable to suppose that,
in an optimised system, the concentrations will approach their limiting values. This
means that the LP solution could be taken as a good starting estimate for a non-
linear programming (NLP) optimisation. Providing a good starting estimate is the
most important means of achieving satisfactory convergence in non-linear
programming. This rationale forms the basis of the linear/non-linear approach.

13
 4.2 MODEL REQUIREMENTS

For the purposes of this study it has been decided to use the constraint of Total
Dissolved Solids (TDS) only, with the focus on whether Water Pinch can be used
successfully on a catchment situation. It is important that the modelled situation
closely resembles the actual situation in the catchment, while at the same time
falling within the constraints of the model programmed in the MATLAB computer
package.

The model can also incorporate cost aspects of the different options, but this
function was not used as very little cost information was available. What follows is
a brief description of these requirements.

As mentioned previously, the model follows a plant set-up. A plant set-up is made
up of different processes and operations, which have specific water requirements.
The input requirements for the different users are in the form of a source,
processes and sinks.

Source
The required input for a source is limited to its cost and quality, excluding the
quantity available. The reason the model only places a limitation on the quality and
not quantity is because of the intended use of the model, for a plant situation. The
focus in a general plant situation is that the only limitation is the cost. The model
does allow for more than one source, and includes cost indicators for each.

Process
The required input for a process is:
1. The maximum allowed inlet concentration
2. The maximum allowed outlet concentration
3. The flow through the process1
4. The water gains or losses in the process

Sinks
The required input for the sinks are similar to that of a process, where the
distinction occurs in what is referred to as the "connectivity" matrix. This matrix is
used to manipulate flows to and from specific processes. It allows the user to allow
or prevent the flow from one process to another. In the case of a sink, the user
would set the connectivity matrix so that no flow is allowed from the sink.

1
The model only allows for one flow as an input
14
 4.3 MODEL LIMITATIONS

A comparison between water pinch and a catchment situation highlights the

limitations with the application of pinch to a catchment situation. The limitations
listed include the following factors:

• Distance and altitude difference between "processes"

• Limits and varied supply of the water source

• Limits posed by the sensitivities of the surrounding ecological environment

• The effects of groundwater and its movement

• The effects of evaporation and transpiration

The limitations of the pinch model presented are now discussed by outlining the
differences between the offerings of the model as compared to the situation in a
catchment (Table 4.1).

Table 4.1 Pinch vs. Catchment Management

Pinch
Water can be routed in any direction
Infinite supply
Dispose of all effluent
Load doesn't change with flows
Catchments
Limited by distance and altitude
Limited and varied supply
Limited by ecological requirements and
downstream users
Load changes with change in flows

15
 4.4 CATCHMENT DATA LIMITATIONS

In addition to the limitations listed above, the data available for representation of a
catchment situation is limited. Comparing a typical production facility with a
catchment under the listed model data requirements shows this:

Table 4.2 Comparison between a production facility and a catchment

Typical Production Facility Catchment

Source: Sources:
Municipal (or other) via • Rainfall, dispersed over the catchment - highly
pipeline - largely dictated variable from year to year and season to
by facility demand season
• Inflow from upstream catchment - highly
variable, unless controlled (buffered) by a dam
• Water transfers
Users: Dynamic users:
Machinery with well known Agriculture
(and controlled) intake • seasonal
volumes and outlet • non-point release of effluent
volumes and quality (e.g. • pollutant load added through runoff, poorly
TDS) known
• water balance poorly known, site specific
(dependent on soil, climate, water table, crop,
etc)
Municipal
• seasonal to a small degree
• water losses through piping
• consumptive use (e.g.) gardening poorly
known
• outlet quality variable
Industrial
(see "Typical Production Facility")
Sinks: Sinks:
Single pipeline from • Evaporation (poorly known)
combined outlets • Transpiration (poorly known)
• Outflow (well known and sometimes
controlled)
• Seepage (poorly known)
• Transfers (well known and controlled)

16
To model the catchment a process of data gathering and identification of gaps
needs to be undertaken. The gaps can then be filled through water balances
across the various systems in operation in the catchments as well as the
catchment itself. The case study on the Grootdraai catchment shows a possible
approach.

17
5 GROOTDRAAI CATCHMENT

The Grootdraai catchment is located in the Industrial Highveld, which forms part of
Mpumalanga Province. The catchment has a surface area of 7924 km 2 and forms
part of the Upper-Vaal reach. One major river, the Upper Vaal, drains the
catchment, with no rivers or streams entering the catchment. All streams within the
catchment drain into the Grootdraai dam, which is located at the western
boundary. [Figure 5.1]

O Matla Power Station

O Bethal Municipality
SASOL
(Secunda)
Ermelo Municipality

Tutuka Power Station

Direction of flow
Thuthukane Municipality

Grootdraai Dam

Figure 5.1 Catchment Layout

18
6 HYDROLOGY

On an annual basis rainfall, by its nature, varies considerably over the catchment.
There are no streams or rivers leading into the catchment, thus the water available
in the catchment has its only source as rainfall. With its only source as rainfall, it
follows that the available water varies considerably too (Figure 6.3) with some
moderation.
The major users, such as industrial and the municipalities in catchment, require a
steady supply of water throughout the year. This has led to the construction of the
Grootdraai dam. By controlling the flow of water that leaves the catchment through
storage, the dam is able to provide a constant, but limited supply, throughout the
year.

6.1 GROOTDRAAI DAM

The historical firm yield for the catchment is estimated by DWAF to be 124 million
cubic meters per year [1], where the historical firm yield is the smallest amount of
water that was available in the recorded history of the catchment. The rivers and
streams within the catchment require a minimum flow to meet the needs of their
aquatic environment. This minimum flow is known as the Ecological Reserve. The
estimated Ecological Reserve for the catchment is 27 million cubic meters per year
[1]-

6.1.1 WATER QUALITY

Water quality measurements are taken for monitoring purposes by DWAF at eight
stations throughout the catchment. As mentioned previously, the majority of water
extractions, by the major users, occur at the dam. Given that the majority are
supplied from the dam, the water quality measurements taken at the dam wall will
be taken as representative of the quality received by users (Table 6.1). The details
of the station are as follows:

Station number: C1R002Q01

Station name: Grootdraai dam on Vaal River: Near dam wall
Data collection: 738 samples collected from November 1982 to September 1999

Table 6.1 Water quality of Grootdraai dam

TDS
STATISTIC (mg/P)
Maximum 251
Mean 164
Minimum 8
Standard Deviation 24.9
19
The data above shows a large variation from minimum to maximum. This can be
due to high rainfall, which will have a dilution effect on the TDS within the rivers
and streams. For the purposes of the study, the number for the will mean water
quality within the dam will be used for the modelling.

6.2 MODEL INPUT

A schematic diagram is used to describe how the various components of the

catchment and its users have been divided into sources, processes and sinks to
allow application of the pinch model. The key below describes the different
symbols and arrows used in the sections that follow:
• A flow that will not be included in the model, but is required in the balance
of the system is listed as a "Constant Flow".
• A flow that will be included in the model is listed as a "Modelled Flow"
KEY to diagrams:

XYZ Process XYZ

Constant flow

Modelled flow

To represent the catchment as a whole, it is necessary to include all activities,

grouped into their categories. The only input to the catchment as a whole (rainfall)
is listed as a source. The outputs are listed as sinks. As discussed previously, the
water reaching the dam from rainfall is influenced by activities in the catchment,
both man-made and natural, ending up in the dam for use by the major users.

20
 DAM
OUTLET
(SINK)

LOSSES* TRANSFERS TO
EVAPORATION, GROOTDRAAI EXTERNAL
GROUNDWATER DAM USERS
SEEPAGE (SINK)
(SINK)

CATCHMENT
RAINFALL
(SOURCE)

USERS

LOSSESB
EVAPORATION, TRANSPIRATION,
GROUNDWATER, SEEPAGE
(SINK)

Figure 6.1 Grootdraai System

Balance for the system:

= +
Sc - Sc-i Gj - Go R - E- Od - Uod + Uid
(4)
Where,
Sc = Storage in catchment for current year
Sc-i = Storage in catchment carried over from previous year
Od = Surface water outflow from catchment for current year
Gj = Groundwater inflow into catchment for current year
G o = Groundwater outflow from catchment for current year
R = Rainfall on catchment for current year
E = Evaporation (incl. Transpiration) from catchment for current year
Uod = Extraction for use
Uiri = Return from users

21
The major users in the catchment draw their water from the Grootdraai dam. The
water available for these users is therefore dependent on the availability of water
in the dam. The Grootdraai dam has a capacity of 364 million cubic meters. It
should be noted that this does not translate into a water availability of 364 million
cubic meters. Instead, the availability of water for a specific year depends on
storage from previous years including inflow to the dam, minus all losses. The
diagram below (Figure 6.2) gives a graphic description:

DAM OUTLET
(SINK)

TRANSFERS TO
EXTERNAL
DAM INLET GROOTDRAAI
USERS
(SOURCE) DAM
(SINK)

USERS

LOSSESB
EVAPORATION, TRANSPIRATION,
GROUNDWATER, SEEPAGE
(SINK)

Fig 6.2 Grootdraai dam system

The balance across the dam is as follows

+
Sj - S, - Id - OH Gid - G ad - Ed - + Uk (5)
Where,
Sj = Storage in dam for current year, i.e. available water for current year
Sj-i = Storage in dam carried over from previous year
Id = Inflow for current year
Od = Outflow for current year
Gld = Groundwater inflow to dam for current year
God = Groundwater outflow from dam for current year
Rd = Rainfall on dam for current year
Ed = Evaporation from dam for current year

22
The balance can be simplified by grouping terms:
Rd- Ed = net loss due to rainfall and evaporation = Lc
Gid - God = net loss due to groundwater seepage = Lg

Equation (5) becomes:

+
Sj-Sj-i = I<,-Od + Lg + Lc-Uod Uid (6)

6.2.1 STORAGE

The pinch model is a steady state model. To overcome the annual changes that
occur in the catchment, the available data is averaged over the 20 years that it has
been collected. In doing this, storage becomes insignificant in terms of the water
balance. The general water balance for a system is as follows:
Sx = SJM + gainsx - lossesx (for system x)
Bur", Sx-i - Sx-2 + gainsx-i - losses^
Therefore, Sx = Sx-2 + gainsx.i - lossesx.i + gainsx - lossesx

(St - Si_n) = ^(Gain.sx - Lossesx)

For n-large and/or S,-+t * S,,

X I

^ (Gainsx - Losses^) - (Sx — SI_n) => J ] (Gainsx - Lossesx)

r—n x—n

Following this, equations 4 and 5, over 20 years, can be simplified to the following:
-Od + Gj-Go + R-E-Uod + Uid = 0 (4a)
Rd-Ed'Uod + Ujd^O (5a)

The dam is a system that is located within the catchment system. It is located at
the downstream end of a catchment and receives the surface water that flows from
the catchment.

23
 Catchment Dam System
System

A. , G<
, God

Fig 6.3 Dam inlet and outlet.

The dam outlet is an output for both the catchment and the dam itself. The two
systems are compared by using this commonality and making the dam, Od, the
subject of the formula for both systems:
Od = (Gi - Go) + (R-E) + (U* - Uoa) (4b)
O d = (GK, - God) + (Ra- - Ed) + ld + (U* - L U (5b)

The inputs and outputs to the catchment that take place outside the dam can be
found by taking the difference between the two systems:
Equation 4b - Equation 5b:
0 = (G; - Go)+ (R-E)-Id- (G* - Got) - (Rd - Ed)
0 = (R-Rd)-(E- Ed) + (Gi-G*) - (Go - G^) - la-
in words,
0 = Rainfall (excl dam) - Evaporation (excl dam) + Groundwater inflow (excl
dam) - Groundwater outflow (excl dam) - Inflow to dam

Rearranging this,
Inflow to dam = Rainfall (excl dam) - Evaporation (excl dam) + Groundwater
inflow (excl dam) - Groundwater outflow (excl dam)

Therefore, the inflow to the dam equals the activities that take place outside the
dam. Since the dam receives its surface water from these activities, it is further
concluded that the inflow to the dam is a result of, and accounts for, all losses and
gains in the catchment, excluding those that occur in the dam itself.

24
 6.2.2 DAM INFLOW
The details of the measuring point upstream of the dam is as follows:

Station No. C1H007

Station name: Vaal River at Goedgeluk

Figure 6.4 Inflow into dam at Goedgeluk measuring station

The average dam inflow from the above graph is 299 million cubic meters. The
current demand from the dam and releases back into system is provided in the
table below:

Table 6.2 Grootdraai dam users

USER DEMAND RETURN REFERENCE
Irrigation 321 500 - Section 7
Tutuka Power Station 47 420 000 - Section 8
Matla Power Station 53 838 000 - Section 8
SASOL 91 250 000 4015 000 Section 8
Ermelo Municipality 3 600 000 1 982 124 Section 9
(water from upstream
dam)
Bethal Municipality 5 420 250 3011 250 Section 9
Thuthukane 1 427 556 642 400 Section 9
Township
TOTAL 203 277 306 9 650 774

25
Therefore,
Uod = Demand = 203 277 306 m3/a
U*i = Return = 9 650 774 m3/a

Substituting into equation 5a, using the average inflow (299 million m3) and the
permitted use of water from the dam:
299.0 = Od + Lg + Lc- 203.3 + 9.7
105.4 = Od + Lg + Lc (6a)
3
The numbers are in million m /year

Therefore the sum of dam outflow, the net loss of evaporation and rainfall, and the
net loss due to ground water seepage is on average 105.4 million m3/year after
taking the use into account.

6.2.3 WATER QUALITY

The quality measured in the dam is also dependent on point releases from
industry and municipalities (see Figure 6.2). The assumption is made that the
mass load contribution, for TDS, from the grouped non-point-sources is much
greater than the mass load from the point sources. To justify this assumption, an
indication of the contribution of the non-point-sources is determined by taking the
difference between the average mass load measured, in TDS, at the inlet to the
dam and the total mass load, in TDS, from the point sources to the surface water
bodies. Excluded from the calculation, are the users that release their wastewater
outside the catchment and users that do not release wastewater.

Mass Loads:
Average TDS at dam = 164 mg/l
Average annual flow into dam = 299 x 106 m 3
Total Mass Load = 164 (x 10 3 kg/m3) x 299 x 106 m 3
= 49.04 x 1 0 6 kg

Average TDS and volumes released by users:

Ermelo = 2 x 106 m 3 at 633 mg/P = 1.27 x 106 kg
Bethal = 3 x 106 m 3 at 547 mg/P = 1.64 x 106 kg
Thuthukane = 642 x 103 at 390 mg/P = 0.25 x 106 kg
Total mass of point loads = 3.16 x 106 kg
= 6.4% of Total Mass Load

26
Based on the previous discussions and assumptions, the modelled situation for
the dam is as follows:

DAM INLET

LOSSES DAM DAM OUTFLOW

USERS

Figure 6.5: Modelled Grootdraai Dam

Using the above configuration the following data were used for the model
1. Dam Inlet to Dam
Volume = Average over 20 years of 299 million m3
TDS = 8 - 2 5 1 mg/P, with an average of 164 mg/P

2. Dam outflow + Losses from Dam

Volume = Average over 20 years of 105.4 million m3
TDS = 8 - 2 5 1 mg/P, with an average of 164 mg/P

3. Dam to Users
Volume = Modelled, with a maximum intake of 203.3 million m3
TDS = 8 - 2 5 1 mg/P, with an average of 164 mg/P

27
7 AGRICULTURAL USE

The volumes extracted by the agricultural sector are recorded by DWAF in the
form of permits. Farmers provide information to DWAF on their water requirements
for specific farming activities, which are collated for catchment management, and
charging purposes. The data on extractions in the Grootdraai catchment are
provided in the table below.

Table 7.1 Extraction volumes of Agriculture

USER SOURCE PERMIT (mJ/a)

Irrigation Borehole 2 202 690
Dams* 7 598 115
Rivers/Streams 33 131 898
Other 373 297
Livestock Watering Borehole 990 920
Dams 5 600
Rivers/Streams 596 271
Other 113209
'Grootdraai dam = 321 500 mJ/a

The agricultural users have three main sources of water, namely, rainfall, surface
water (dams, rivers and streams) and groundwater. The water extracted from the
surface and groundwater sources are used to supplement the water obtained from
rainfall. The water extracted is therefore dependent on the amount or lack of
rainfall and varies considerably. The release of water is, as mentioned previously,
treated as a non-point source, i.e. evapotranspiration and seepage. The volume
released annually as evapotranspiration, is dependent on numerous factors, which
vary from site to site:
• Type of crop
• Humidity
• Soil moisture content and the height of the water table
• Wind speed
• Temperature

The quality demanded by the two subcategories, namely livestock watering and
irrigation, was derived from the South African Water Quality Guidelines
(SAWQG)2. The SAWQG serve as the primary source of information for
determining the water quality requirements of different water users and for the
protection and maintenance of the health of aquatic ecosystems.

A water quality guideline is a set of information provided for a specific water quality constituent.
28
The upper boundaries of the No Effects3 water quality range of the SAWQG were
used for TDS. The limits relevant to this study were as follows:

Table 7.2 Selected SAWQG for Livestock Watering and Irrigation

Agriculture Type TDS
(mg/P)
Livestock Watering 1000
Irrigation 267

The Grootdraai dam has an average TDS of 164mg/P, which is of a higher quality
than is required by the agricultural sector.

For each water quality constituent there is a No Effects Range. This is the range of
concentrations or levels at which the presence of that constituent would have no known or
anticipated adverse effects on the suitability of water for a particular use. These ranges were
determined by assuming long-term continuous use and incorporation of a margin of safety.
29
 7.1 MODEL INPUT

There are numerous users located throughout the catchment. Extraction methods
utilised include both surface and groundwater sources. The effluents generated by
agricultural users are non-point releases through seepage into ground water and
runoff into rivers. The use of water in the agricultural sector can be described as
follows:

GROUNDWATER
WATER FLOW OUT OF
CATCHMENT
RAINFALL

SYSTEM
BOUNDARY

SEEPAGE

GROUNDWATER

EVAPORATION,
AGRICULTURE
TRANSPIRATION

SURFACE WATER

RUNOFF

SURFACE FLOW SUPPLY FROM

INTO DAM GROOTDRAAI DAM

Figure 7.1 Water balance for Agriculture

Irrigation serves as a supplement to the shortages from rainfall. For a water

balance across the system, the focus is on the inputs and outputs:
+ = + +
RA UOA EA GOA IA

Where,
RA = Rainfall onto agricultural land
UOA = Water demand from dam
EA = Evaporation and transpiration from agricultural land
GOA = Portion of groundwater flow out of catchment, originating from agriculture
IA = Portion of dam inflow from agriculture

30
But,
RA is an element/portion of R (total rainfall,)
EA is an element/portion of E (total evaporation,)
IA is an element/portion of / (total inflow into dam,)
GOA is an element/portion of G (total groundwater flow from catchment;

Since these elements have been accounted for in the overall balance (Section
6.2), they do not have to be considered further. Therefore, the only variable not
accounted for thus far is water demand from the dam for agricultural purposes. Of
all the numerous agricultural users, only one irrigation user actually draws from the
Grootdraai dam. Following this argument, the model should only include this user
and exclude the rest of the agricultural users that do not draw from the dam.

Based on the above arguments, the modelled situation for agriculture is therefore
as follows:

Figure 7.2 Modelled Agriculture

X to Agriculture
Volume = Permitted amount of 321 500 m 3
TDS = Maximum of 267 mg/P

31
8 INDUSTRIAL USE

The industrial sector consists of users located inside and outside the catchment.
The major users are ESKOM and SASOL. A description of these users follows in
the subsections below.

8.1 ESKOM [17]

8.1.1 WATER REQUIREMENTS

Eskom has two power stations that draw water from the Grootdraai dam, namely,
Tutuka and Matla. The required volumes are presented in Table 3.

Table 8.1 Grootdraai Dam Power Station Water Consumers

Power Station Permit
(m3/year)
Tutuka 47 420 000
Matla 53 838 000

The quality requirements of power stations are such that they can be operated on
water of poor quality provided sufficient water treatment is undertaken. With the
added desalination, increased brine disposal is required, where brine is the by-
product of water treatment. The disposal of brine has been specifically highlighted
by ESKOM as a major problem.

To limit the brine disposal and its associated problems, ESKOM has set the
following TDS requirements for the Vaal River system:
• Ideal TDS concentration of less than 120 mg/P
• Tolerable TDS concentration of: 120 - 240 mg/P
• Unacceptable TDS concentration of greater than 240 mg/P

In addition to the TDS requirements listed above, ESKOM also have the following
water quality objectives for their power stations operating on a raw water supply
from the Vaal River system:

32
Table 8.2 ESKOM additional requirements
Parameter Units Ideal Acceptable Not
Acceptable
Conductivity uScm"1 <160 160 to 320 >320
Total Organic Carbon mgkg"1 as C <2 2 to 5 >5
Sodium mgkg"1 as Na < 10 10 to 25 >25
Chloride mgkg"1 as Cl <5 5 to 15 > 15
Sulphate mgkg"1 as < 15 15 to 40 >40
SO4
Permanent hardness mgkg~1as Nil <8 >8
(T Hardness - M CaCO3
Alkalinity)
M Alkalinity mgkg"1 as <60 60 to 120 > 120
CaCO3
Total hardness mgkg"1 as <60 60 to 120 > 120
CaCO3
Barium ugkg 1 as Ba <30 30 to 60 >60
Strontium ugkg'1 as Sr <80 80 to 120 >120

8.1.2 WASTEWATER
Both power stations must conform to the Zero Liquid Effluent Discharge (ZLED)
policy. The two power stations therefore release zero effluent into the system. The
effluent is used instead to transport the coal-ash to the ash disposal site.
Thuthukane Township, which forms part of Tutuka power station, has a maximum
allowable (permitted) discharge of 1760 m3 per day and TDS of 390 mg/P.

8.2 SASOL[18]

8.2.1 WATER REQUIREMENTS

SASOL extracts 91 250 000 m3 per year of its water requirements from the
Grootdraai Dam. This is used for boiler feed water and cooling water. The raw
water, obtained from the dam, is treated by a water treatment plant to meet their
water quality requirements. The volume of water required increases with an
increase in TDS, e.g. an additional 10 950 000 m3 per year is extracted when TDS
increases from 200 to 300 mg/P. This increases the volume of water required to
102 200 000 m3/a for a TDS of 300 mg/P.

8.2.2 WASTEWATER
Most wastewater, that is high in TDS, is used to transport coal ash to the ash
disposal site. Therefore the ash disposal site functions also as a sink for a large
part of the TDS. Approximately 4 015 000 m3 per year at a TDS of 900 mg/P is
released into the Waterval river, located in the Waterval catchment.

33
 8.3 MODEL INPUT

Industrial plants are treated as processes. The pinch program is not equipped to
handle differences between inlet and outlet volumes; therefore to overcome this,
the plants with a difference between inlet and outlet volumes are divided into two
processes. For the first of the two processes the process volume and the inlet
concentration are the characteristics of the water that enters the process. The
outlet concentration in the model is the actual outlet concentration of the plant, but
does not have the associated volume that the plant releases. The second of the
processes is used to account for the change in volume. The inlet and outlet
concentration is equalled to the outlet of the first process, while the process
volume is set to the actual outlet volume of the plant.

Based on the above arguments, the modelled situation for industrial users is
therefore as follows:

INDUSTRIAL (IN)
LOSSES

INDUSTRIAL
(OUT)

i
Figure 8.1 Modelled Industrial Users

1a) X to Tutuka (in)

Volume = Permitted amount of 47 420 000 m 3
TDS = Maximum of 240 mg/P
1b) Tutuka (in) to Tutuka (out)
Volume = 0
TDS = 0

34
2a) X to Matla (in)
Volume = Permitted amount of 53 838 000 m 3
TDS = Maximum of 240 mg/P
2b) Matla (in) to Matla (out)
Volume = 0
TDS = 0

3a) X to SASOL (in)

Volume = 91 250 000 m 3 (TDS = Maximum of 200 mg/P)
Volume = 102 200 000 m 3 (TDS = Maximum of 300 mg/P)
3b) SASOL (in) to SASOL (out)
Volume = 4 015 000 m 3
TDS = 900 mg/P

35
9 MUNICIPALITIES

Municipalities either source their input water from the Grootdraaidam or from an
upstream dam or tributary. For the modelling it was assumed that all water was
extracted from the dam. No specific information on TDS content for the upstream
dams or tributaries was available and therefore the TDS content of the
Grootdraaidam was used for the model.

The municipalities and their wastewater releases are listed in Table 9.1.
Amersfoort and Morgenzon municipalities' wastewater is used for irrigation. Given
the end use and the small volumes, these two municipalities have not been
included in the modelling. To prevent municipalities from receiving the wastewater
of other municipalities and users, due to the sensitivity of their requirements
outside that of TDS, the inlet water quality was limited to that of the dam. The data
from the DWAF report, the Augmentation of the Eastern Sub-system of the Vaal
River system [17], is described in the table below:

Table 9.1: Municipal wastewater releases [1]

Flow TDS
Point Sources (m3/day) (mg/P) Recipient
Ermelo Municipality (2 treatment Klein Kafferspruit
works combined) 5683 633
Bethal Municipality Tributary
8250 547 (Blesbokspruit)
Armersfoort Municipality 170 - Irrigation
Morgenzon Municipality Irrigation / Diluting
400 medium (nightsoil)
Thuthukane Township 1760 [17] 390 Leeuspruit

An estimate of the water losses were made by using Ermelo municipality as a

base. The inlet volume for Ermelo raw water treatment plant is 3 600 000 m 3 per
year [19]. The outlet for Ermelo wastewater treatment plants is 1 982 124 m 3 per
year. This is a total loss across the system of 45%. Using a loss of 45% for the
remaining 2 municipalities the inlet and outlet volumes for the municipalities are as
follows:

36
Table 9.2 Municipal water use
Ermelo (in) 3 600 000
Ermelo (out) 1 982 124
Bethal 5 420 250
Bethal (out) 3 011 250
Thuthukane (in) 1 427 556
- Sourced from Tutuka Power Station
Thuthukane (out) 642 400

9.1 MODEL INPUT

The same situation as far as difference in inlet and outlet volumes occurs in
Municipalities as with Industrial users. The same approach of splitting the user into
two processes is therefore taken.

Based on the above arguments, the modelled situation for municipalities is

therefore as follows:

MUNICI PALITY LOSSES

(1

'r

MUNICIPALITY
(OUT)

Figure 9.1 Modelled municipal users

1a) Dam to Ermelo (in)

Volume = 3 600 000 m3
TDS = 8 - 251 mg/P, with an average of 164 mg/P
1b) Ermelo (in) to Ermelo (out)
Volume = 1 982 124 m3
TDS = Average of 633 mg/P

37
2a) Dam to Bethal (in)
Volume = 5 420 250 m3
TDS = 8 - 2 5 1 mg/P, with an average of 164 mg/P
2b) Bethal (in) to Bethal (out)
Volume = 3 011 250 m3
TDS = Average of 547 mg/P

3a) Dam to Thuthukane (in)

Volume = 1 427 556 m3
TDS = 8 - 2 5 1 mg/P, with an average of 164 mg/P
3b) Thuthukane (in) to Thuthukane (out)
Volume = 642 400 m3
TDS = Average of 390 mg/P

38
10 MODEL APPLICATION

Based on the data and its manipulation in the previous sections, the water pinch
model developed by Chris Brouckaert was applied to the following data, used as
representation for the Grootdraai catchment. The part of the model that takes
costs into consideration was excluded from the modelling as this was not part of
the scope. The differences between the two parts of the table are explained on
page 52.
Table 10.1 Model Input
Mass
balance for
individual
water
users

Maxim Maximum TDS Outlet Outlet

Process Inlet Inlet vol TDS(ton) Vol loss (Tons) Outlet vol Concn (Tons)
Irrigation 0.267 321500 85.84 321500 B5.84 0 0.00
Tutuka 0.24 47420000 11380.80 4742000 11380.8 0 0.00
Matla 0.24 53838000 12921.12 5383800 12921.1 0 0.00
Sasol 0.3 102200000 30660.00 9818500 27046.5 4015000 0.90 3613.50
Ermelo 0.164 3600000 590.40 1617876 -664.28 1982124 0.63 1254.68
Bethal 0.164 5420250 888.92 2409000 -758.23 3011250 0.55 1647.15
Thutukane 0.164 1427556 234.12 785156 -16.42 642400 0.39 250.54
Total 214227316 9650774
Best TDS Outlet Outlet
Process Inlet Inlet vol TDS(ton) Vol loss (Tons) Outlet vol Concn (Tons)

Irrigation 0.164 321500 52.73 321500 52.73 0 0.00

Tutuka 0.164 47420000 7776.88 4742000 777688 0 0.00
Matla 0.164 53838000 8829.43 5383800 8829 43 0 0.00
Sasol 0.164 102200000 16760.80 9818500 13147.3 4015000 0.90 3613.50
Ermelo 0.164 3600000 590.40 1617876 -664.28 1982124 0.63 1254.68
Bethal 0.164 5420250 888.92 2409000 -758.23 3011250 0.55 1647.15
Thutukane 0.164 1427556 234.12 785156 -1642 642400 0.39 250.54
Total 214227316 9650774

In the above table the input information is summarized in the form of a mass
balance, taking volume and TDS into account. The table shows that the total
amount of available waste water is 9650774 m 3 . However the municipalities
release waste water back into the catchment and therefore if this water is re-used
it does not reduce the overall amount of water used in the catchment. In the
following diagram the intake volumes and the outlet volumes are represented
graphically showing that the total outlet volumes are 4.5% of the intake volumes.

39
 WATER DEMAND WATER USAGE WATER RELEASE

Tutuka Power Station

Matia Power Station

SASOL discharge
to Waterval River

Ermelo Municipality

Beth a I Municipality

Thuthukane Township

Irrigation
Fig 10.1 Intake and outlet volumes

Two scenarios are represented.

The first scenario is based upon the maximum inlet concentrations that the users
accept as explained in the previous sections. From these maximum inlet
concentrations and the actual intake volumes the maximum TDS was calculated.
The same procedure was followed for the output streams, therefore the
concentrations in table 10.1 are the maximum outlet concentrations for each user.
In the previous sections it was discussed that irrigation and the power stations
have no outlet stream and therefore also no outlet TDS. The loss of both volume
and TDS is 100%. Therefore the modelling parameters are set so that no waste
water from these users is available for others. The other users have an outlet
stream and therefore also an outlet TDS, but there are losses which can be either
positive or negative. For example SASOL has a volume loss of 96% and a TDS
loss of 88%. The reason is that most of Sasol's intake water is evaporated as
cooling water and brine stream is used to transport coal ash to the ash dump. The
municipalities reported a water loss of 45%, but a TDS increase {negative loss).
40
The reason for the volume reduction is that part of the intake water is not returned
to the sewage system as it is used for e.g. watering gardens. The reason for the
increase in overall TDS is that the sewage water has a much higher TDS than the
intake water.

In the second scenario it is assumed that all users use the best input quality water
e.g. water from the dam. It is further assumed that the outlet volumes and
concentrations are the same as in the first scenario. Therefore all volumes in the
second scenario are the same as in the first scenario, but for the industrial users
the TDS loss is smaller than in the first scenario. In a real plant situation the
volume of the intake water would have been reduced for the second scenario as
was discussed in the previous section, but no information about this reduction was
available and therefore it was not taken into account.

During the modelling a comparison was made between the first scenario and the
second one during each modelling run, showing how much water could be saved,
if all waste water would be re-used.

41
 11 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The model was applied in two ways, namely fixed concentration and fixed mass
load.

With fixed concentration, the concentration of TDS was fixed for the outlet water
stream. No matter what is done to the flow rate to/from that plant or process or
what happens to the inlet concentration, the outlet concentration will remain the
same. The program will adjust the mass load over the process in such a way as to
satisfy the fixed concentration condition. The fixed concentration mode is typically
used in a plant situation where there is something precipitating or dissolving in
contact with a solid phase, so that the outlet concentration is fixed by equilibrium
considerations. It can also be used in a situation where there is a treatment
process with some kind of feedback control to maintain a specified outlet
concentration.

The result was as follows:

Table 11.1 Results for fixed concentration
Flows (ML) To
Irrigati Tutuka Matla Sasol Enrnelo Bethal Thutukane Total from
on dam

From Irrigation 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

Tutuka 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Matla 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Sasol 30.4 1992.2 1992.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Ermelo 6.3 984.2 984.2 7.5 0.0 0.0 0.0
Bethal 7.1 1501.4 1501.4 1.3 0.0 0.0 0.0
Thutukane 0.0 321.1 321.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Dam 277.7 42621.1 49038. 102191. 3600.0 5420.3 1427.6 20457.5
7 2
Cone Inlet 0.2513 0.2184 0.2119 0.164 0.164 0.164 0.164
(kg/m3) Outlet 0.901 0.633 0.547 0.390
Flows if all users are supplied only from dam (ML)
Dam 321.5 47420 53838 102200 3600 5420.3 1427.6 214227.3
Difference 9650.8

With Fixed Mass Load, the mass load change over a plant/process was fixed. In
this way a constant amount of TDS is added to the stream no matter what is done
to the flow rate to/from the plant or process or what happens to the inlet
concentration. The program will adjust the outlet concentration of the stream in
order to satisfy this condition. The fixed mass load approach is the standard model
of a water-using process. The philosophy is that the function of the water is to
remove contaminants from the process stream and as the pinch analysis will not

42
 affect the operation of the process, the load of TDS will be fixed. The results are
shown below;

Table 11.2 Results for fixed mass loads

Flows To
(ML)
Irrigation Tutuka Matla Sasol Ermelo Bethal Thutukane Total from
dam
From Irrigation 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Tutuka 0.0 00 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Matla 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Sasol 0.0 1.0 1.0 4012.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Ermelo 0.0 0.0 0.0 1982.0 0.0 00 0.0
Bethal 0.0 0.0 0.0 3011.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Thutukane 0.0 0.0 0.0 642.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Dam 321.0 47419.0 53837 0 92552. 3600.0 5420.3 1427.6 20457.5
0
Cone Inlet 0.2513 0.2184 0.2119 0.164 0.164 0.164 0.164
(kg/m3) Outlet 0.901 0.633 0 547 0.390
Flows if all users are supplied only from dam (ML)
Dam 321.5 47420 53838 102200 3600 5420.3 1427.6 214227.3
Difference 9650.8

The output of the model for both fixed concentration and fixed mass load shows
that all waste water can be re-used in principle. However the fixed concentration
model allocates nearly all waste water to the two power stations and the fixed
mass load model allocates nearly all waste water to SASOL. Upon trying to
understand this difference in allocation it appeared that the number of parameters
to be optimised was small and that the model could satisfy its requirements in
many ways depending on chance starting conditions. It is therefore concluded that
the model cannot indicate the optimum solution, as more than one optimum
solution exist. The differences between the two results above are in fact not nearly
as significant as the output would suggest.

In order to increase the understanding of the possible allocations for the different
waste water streams to the potential users, a spreadsheet was compiled showing
the different users and how effluent water can in principle be allocated depending
on the maximum TDS levels that the user can tolerate. It must be emphasized that
this study is considering only TDS as a parameter, and that if allocations would be
done in the real world that all contaminants for which a user has set a maximum
must be taken into account.

43
Table: 11.3 Spreadsheet allocation of waste water to users
Supplier
User Vol. Irrigation Tutuka Matla Sasol Ermelo Bethal Thutuka
Irrigation 321500 0 0 0 44993 71061 86461 146524
Tutuka 4742000 0 0 0 4015000 1982124 3011250 642400
Matla 5383800 0 0 0 4015000 1982124 3011250 642400
Sasol 1022000 0 0 0 4015000 1982124 3011250 642400
Ermelo 3600000 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Bethal 5420250 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Thutukane 1427556 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

NB Tutuka can take all Sasol's waste water and Thutukane's and Ermelo's or another combination
without exceeding its TDS limit.
Matla can take aii Sasol's waste water and Thutukane's and Ermelo's or another combination
without exceeding its TDS limit.
Sasol can take all waste water including its own without exceeding its TDS limit.

Table 11.3 shows options for the users. For example, irrigation as a user can take
44993 m 3 from Sasol or 71061 m 3 from Ermelo or86461 m 3 from Bethal or 146524
m 3 from Thutukane. A similar situation exists for the other users. From the table it
is clear that there is more than enough capacity to re-use all the waste water
streams without exceeding the inlet requirements on TDS for the individual users.
It shows that the larger users can take the total waste water stream of a supplier or
even a number of suppliers. The table also shows that there are many potential
allocations and as long as no additional criteria are set e.g. the cost of transporting
the waste from the generator to the user or criteria for other contaminants, all
these allocations are equivalent confirming the observation that the model
chooses, more or less at random, a solution.

The overall reduction on the demand from the dam would be equal to the total
amount of re-used waste water, which is 9.6 million rrrVyear (4.5% of the current
demand on the dam). However a large part of the waste water that is currently
returned upstream from the dam in the rivers of the catchment is flowing into the
dam. If this waste water would be allocated to other users the inflow to the dam
would be reduced by this amount which is 5.6 million m 3 /year. (2.6% of the
current demand on the dam.

44
12 CONCLUSION

The following conclusions were drawn from the study:

• The available information from the users (inlet and outlet quantities of water
and requirements for inlet and outlet TDS) were not optimal input
information for the model to optimise the allocation of the waste streams to
different users and therefore the model output was closer to a random
allocation.

• There are large differences between a catchment and a plant situation for
which the model was designed and in order to use a water pinch type
model for a catchment, considerable changes to the current model would
likely be required.

• The modelling as well as the spreadsheet calculation showed that in terms

of TDS inlet requirements all waste water could be re-used by the main
water users.

• The study catchment area may not be representative for other catchments
for two reasons. In this particular catchment, only a small percentage of the
inlet water is released as waste water, due to the presence of industries
that evaporate most water as part of their processes. Also another aspect of
this type of industry is that most of the TDS in the inlet water is not returned
to the surface water of the catchment, but becomes part of the ash disposal
sites.

13 RECOMMENDATIONS

As good water management is important for South Africa in general and, more
specific, in catchments such as the Grootdraaidam catchment, where water
demand is likely to exceed water supply in the future, it is recommended to
investigate the development of a model that can reliably simulate all the important
aspects of a catchment and thereby help to reduce water use by optimising the
allocation of waste water to different users. This model should be based upon the
principles of water pinch, but would be substantially different from existing models.

45
14 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors wish to acknowledge the Water Research Commission for financially
supporting this project.

The authors wish to acknowledge Greg Steenveld for his technical advice during
the execution of the project, Chris Brouckaert for making the water pinch
programme available and the valuable contributions that he made in the
application of water pinch modelling. The authors also wish to acknowledge the
other members from the steering committee for making their time available for the
meetings and their inputs in the report.

46
 REFERENCES

[I] DWAF, BKS, 1998 Augmentation of the Eastern Sub-system of the Vaal
River System: Desktop Study

[2] RossiterAP, 1995 Waste Minimisation Through Process Design, Chapter

5, Pinch Analysis in Pollution Protection

[3] Eastwood A R, Tainsh R A, Fien G J, 1998

Minimising Wastewater Emissions using Water Pinch TM Analysis: A
Technical White Paper

[4] Brouckaert C J, et al, 1999

Optimal location of a membrane treatment plant in a Power Station. Paper
presented at IAWQ International Specialised Conference on Membrane
Technology in Environmental Management, Tokyo

[5] IUCN, Goldblatt, N. et aL, 2000

Water demand management: Towards developing effective strategies for
Southern Africa
[6] Hall SG, 1997 Water and effluent minimisation, Institution of Chemical
Engineers, North Western Branch Papers, No. 4

[7] Dhole VR, Ramchandani N, Tainsh RA, 1996

Make your process water pay for itself, Chemical Engineering, Vol. 103,
Issue 1, pp 100-103

[8] Schaareman M, Verstraeten E, Blaak R, Hooimeijer A, Chester I, 2000

Energy and water pinch study at the Parenco Paper Mill, Paper Technology,
Vol.41, Part 1, pp 47-52

[9] TripathiP, 1996

Pinch technology reduces wastewater, Chemical Engineering, Vol. 103,
Issue 11, pp 87-89

[10] Hamilton R, Dowson D, 1994

Pinch cleans up, Chemical Engineer, Part 566, pp 42-44

[II] Cripps, H, 2000

Pinch technology for waste minimisation, Paper Technology, Vol. 4 1 , Part 1,
pp 33-38

47
[12] Alva-Argaez A, Kokossis AC, Smith R, 1998
Wastewater minimisation of industrial systems using an
integrated approach, Computers and Chemical Engineering, Vol. 22 -
supplement, pp S741-744

[13] Smith R, Petela R, 1994

Wastewater minimisation and the design of effluent treatment systems using
pinch analysis, Environmental Protection Bulletin, Part 030, pp 5-10

[14] El-Halwagi, Manousiouthakis V, 1989

Synthesis of mass exchange networks, AlChE Journal, Vol. 35, No. 8, pp
1233-1244

[15] El-Halwagi, Manousiouthakis V, 1990

Simultaneous synthesis of mass-exchange and regeneration networks,
AlChE Journal, Vol. 36, No. 8, pp 1209-1219

[16] Wang YP, Smith R, 1994

Wastewater minimisation, Chemical Engineering Science, Vol. 49, No. 7, pp
981-1006

[17] Discussion with Dirk Hanekom, ESKOM

[18] Discussion with Mario Augoustinos, Roux du Toit, SASOL

[19] Discussion with Ermelo Municipality

48
APPENDIX: MATHEMATICAL PROGRAMMING APPROACH TO WATER
PINCH ANALYSIS

DOYLE AND SMITH (1997)

Doyle and Smith considered that a water-using network is not simply a special
case of a mass-exchange network, because operations such as cooling towers,
steam systems and hosing operations cannot be considered as mass-exchangers.
They pointed out that non-linear mathematical programming techniques suffered
from difficulties in ensuring that they found the global optimum to a problem, rather
than a local optimum, particular for problems involving many variables. Linear
programming techniques, on the other hand, can handle very large problems, and
global convergence is readily obtained. They therefore presented linear and non-
linear formulations of the problem, and proposed a combined linear/non-linear
approach to overcome the previously encountered difficulties.
The basic model of a water-using operation (Figure A1) is similar to Wang and
Smith's fixed-load model, except that:
i) an alternate option is considered, where the mass load is allowed to vary
in order to fix the outlet concentration of contaminant
ii) a water gain or loss is allowed, to model operations such as cooling
towers or evaporators.

Contaminant n 8/» W, Water

•jn

Figure A1 A water using process

The basic concepts of limiting flows and concentrations, and the relationship
between them via the mass balances, are exactly the same as in Wang and Smith
(1994a).
To automate the procedure for finding the optimal set of connections between
units, a superstructure for the network is considered (Figure A2). This allows, in
principle, all possible connections.

49
 /

Fresh^ Waste
1 2
water if -•* water

Figure A2 The superstructure for a simple 2-process network

In the original paper, several different versions of the balance equations were
given, which made the treatment difficult to follow. Here a somewhat different
formulation is used, for compactness and clarity.
The balance over process / can be expressed as
Flow balance:

Balance for component n.

ZFji cm + LFjh ciat +Sjr, = I ZFn + z.Fjk +Wi\c

i K \ i k (8)
Where
Fji is the flow of (re-used) water from outlet of process / to inlet of process)
FM is tile flow of (used) water from outlet of process / to waste sink w
FJk is the flow of (fresh) water from source / to inlet of process j
Cin is the concentration of ion n in outlet stream from process /
5in is the mass gain of contaminant n over process /
Wi is the water gain over process /

Balances of this form exist for each of the P processes and k contaminants in the
system, and can be viewed as the basic set of process constraints. Specific limits
on flows and concentrations, for a particular system, will form additional
constraints.
To complete the formulation, an objective function must be defined to provide the
basis for optimisation. A rather general form for the objective function was
proposed, representing fixed and variable costs associated with each stream in
the system, to be minimised:

(In fact, this form fails to address an important practical issue, namely where the
cost associated with a particular stream is dependent on the contaminant load,

50
rather than just the flow rate, however there is no particular problem in including
terms to represent this.)
This formulation of the problem has non-linearities in the objective function
(Equation 9) and in the component balances (Equation 8). It should usually be
possible to use a linearised objective function as an approximation, but, in the
case of fixed contaminant loads, the component balances are intrinsically non-
linear because the terms which are products of flow rate and concentration, since
both are variables in the problem. In the case of fixed outlet concentrations,
however, Equation 8 is linear in the flow rates, since the concentrations are then
known constants. Thus, if all processes in the system are of the fixed-outlet-
concentration type, the problem could be formulated to a linear programming (LP)
optimisation. Although this is a most unlikely scenario, it is reasonable to suppose
that, in an optimised system, the concentrations will approach their limiting values.
This means that the LP solution could be taken as a good starting estimate for a
non-linear programming (NLP) optimisation. Providing a good starting estimate is
the most important means of achieving satisfactory convergence in non-linear
programming. This rationale forms the basis of the linear/non-linear approach.

ALVA-ARGAEZ, KOKKOSIS AND SMITH (1998)

The extension to the Doyle and Smith treatment consisted of noting that once a
set of flow rates had been obtained from the linear-programming solution, which
assumes that the outlet concentrations are at their limiting values, one can
calculate the corresponding set of concentrations, and determine where the
assumptions are in error. If the calculated concentrations are below the limits, the
errors are of no consequence. For concentrations which exceed the limits the
errors can be added into the objective function to be minimised, so that running
the LP algorithm again will tend to drive the errors to zero. This provides the basis
for a method which uses a series of LP optimisations which converge to the NLP
solution, taking advantage of the particular mathematical structure of water pinch
problems.
A further refinement introduced binary variables corresponding to each possible
connection in the network. For these, a value of 1 indicates that the connection
exists, and a value of 0 that it does not. This formulation allows automatic control
of features such as the elimination of streams that fall below a specified flow rate,
or the maximum number of connections allowed in the network, to avoid excessive
complexity. These variables move the optimisations into the class of Mixed Integer
(Ml) programming - once again MILP is very much more tractable than MINLP.

51
 •sau..

Other related WRC reports available:

The application of pinch analysis for the rational management of water and effluent in an
industrial complex

Brouckaert CJ: Buckley CA

The chemical processing industry, in the RSA and internationally, poses environmental challenges as it is
characterised by a relatively low water use but the effluents produced are often concentrated and can contain toxic
or inhibitory contaminants. Compounded by the low availability of water in the RSA, the management trend is to
reduce both water use and effluent generation at source during production processing. Process integration is a
holistic approach to process design, retrofitting and operation which emphasises the unity of a process or
processes so that overall eco-efficiency can be sought.

Pinch analysis is a process integration tool first developed for optimising the design of heat recovery systems. The
technique was subsequently extended theoretically to water-using systems with the objective of minimising water
use by maximising water re-use. Modern water pinch analysis is a set of systematic formal mathematical
techniques for handling the complex problem of hierarchical water allocation to a multi-process system involving
multiple contaminants, and choosing the "best" strategy according to selected priorities including overall cost
minimisation.

The aims of this project were to apply and assess water pinch technology as an approach in the RSA for
minimising water use and effluent generation in a chemical complex, to refine the technique as necessary, and to
transfer expertise in the technology to industry, regulators and academics. The initial case study targeted was the
AECI Umbogintwini industrial complex consisting of 13 individual factories with site services coordinated by a
separate company (AECI Operational Services). Due to interest expressed by industry, during the course of the
study three other investigations were also commenced, at Sanachem (agrochemicals). Eskom Lethabo (power
generation) and Mondi Merebank (paper milling).

The results obtained may be classified into two categories, namely specific results at the sites studied and general
results relating to the development and application of water pinch analysis. At Sasol Polymers chlor-alkali plant,
one of the three largest water users in the AECI complex, the study identified significant potential savings in water
use (72%), effluent generation (45%), HCI use (2.9%) and NaOH use (4.2%). At Sanachem, the batch-wise
production of agrochemicals such as pesticides and herbicides uses water as a reaction or washing solvent and
generates effluents which are contaminated with toxic organics with a high hazard rating. The pinch investigation
identified measures to reduce water use by around 40%. proportionate reductions in the generation of toxic and
other effluents, and simultaneously a 25% increase in production capacity due to reduced batch times. At Lethabo
Power Station, the particular objective was to establish the "best" use of an existing reverse osmosis (RO) plant in
the system. The pinch analysis quantified the balance to be struck between the quantities of river water, mine
water and regeneration chemicals used and the volume and quality of the net effluent generated, and showed that
in one scenario it was technically feasible to use the RO plant to operate the combined mine and power station
together on a zero-liquid effluent basis with identifiable cost considerations.

Regarding the general conclusions about water pinch analysis, the study showed that (a) a clear and systematic
picture was given of the water requirements of a system of processes, (b) areas in which water efficiency could
most beneficially be improved were highlighted, and (c) a rational tool was provided for negotiation on water use
targets amongst industry, regulators and other role players. Overall it was recommended that water pinch analysis
should be extended in theory (for example to include concomitant energy use) and in practice (by further
implementation). Industry has already demonstrated significant interest in applying water pinch analysis as an aid
towards better water and effluent management, and its use is expected to grow.

Report Number: 851/1/03 ISBN No: 1 77005 028 0

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