Water Minimization through Pinch technology

Jose R. Alvarez
Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering UNIVERSITY OF OVIEDO

Ankara, September 13-15 2010

Water Pinch Technology

Systematic technique for analyzing water networks and reducing water costs for processes. Aims to identify and select the best water re-use, regeneration and effluent treatment opportunities. Avoid End-Of-Pipe solutions May be applied to almost any industrial water system where there are users of fresh water and producers of waste water. It can also analyze small systems. More restrictions = less scope for water savings. Good solutions: save water reduce capital investment recover valuable raw materials

Applicability

The savings achieved depend greatly on the project objectives. Capital cost savings often play a major role in the deliverables of a water pinch study. Identifying and deploying the best water re-use systems is a challenge.

Industry Chemical &Fibers Corn processing

Water Reduction 25 % 25 %

Oil refining
Chemicals Paper mill Coal chemicals Polymers (batch) Military Base

30 %
40 % 20 % 50 % 60 % 40 %

Water Uses in Industry Waste Water Streams

CONTAMINATED STORM WATER

PROCESS 1
RAW WATER RAW WATER TREATMENT FRESH WATER PROCESS 2 WASTE WATER

PROCESS 3
BFW TREATMENT Steam STEAM SYSTEM Condensate loss

Boiler blowdown
Ion exchange regeneration

Cooling tower blowdown WASTEWATER Discharge TREATMENT

Principles for Saving Water

Re-use (no concentration changes) Re-use (with changes to inlet concentration) Regeneration and re-use Distributed effluent treatment

Re-Use (no concentration changes)

Begin with the assumption that the existing concentrations are the maximum limits.

This normally identifies a few small re-use opportunities. To achieve further savings we must challenge the assumptions made for concentration limits.

Re-Use (with changes to inlet

concentration)

Identify projects where large water savings are possible by increasing the upper concentration limits to selected sinks. This will normally identify a few large re-use opportunities.

Regeneration and Re-use

Identify and test different combinations of regeneration and re-use projects.

Key tools for identifying these opportunities are contaminant sensitivity analysis and marginal costs.

Distributed Effluent Treatment

(de-centralized effluent treatment systems)

Streams are segregated into categories and treated appropriately before mixing with other streams. Several small scale treatment units are used that operate on undiluted effluent streams rather than one large unit operating on very dilute effluent. The resulting system can offer better removal efficiency at reduced cost.

Variants of Water Pinch

Method 1: UMIST
based on contaminant generation and concentration limitations which give limiting profiles and targets

Method 2: LM (Linnhoff March)

based on known available sources and known demands which give targets and water use

Process Stream CPROC, IN fW CW, OUT

f Mass Transfer CPROC, OUT Water Stream CW, IN

CPROC, OUT

CPROC, IN CW, OUT

CPROC, OUT

CPROC, IN Water Profiles

CW, IN

m C C
(CW, OUT)max (CW, IN) max
Limiting Water Profile

Process

Process

Limiting Water Profile Water Supply Lines

Concentration vs mass transported diagram

T
TPROC, OUT TPROC, IN

TW, OUT

CPROC, OUT

CPROC, IN CW, OUT

TW, IN

CW, IN

DH

DT = 1/CP DH

DC = 1/Q Dm

UMIST approach

Maximum use of water Maximum water inlet concentration Maximum water outlet concentration Restrictions: Minimum driving force for mass transfer Solubility limits Scaling and deposit formation Corrosion limits Minimum flow to avoid sedimentation of suspended solids

Example. One contaminant

after R. Smith, UMIST
PROCESS 1 PROCESS 2
(CW, IN) max

Process

(CW, OUT)max
Limiting Water Profile

PROCESS 3
m

PROCESS 4

Example : One contaminant

after R. Smith, UMIST
PROCESS 1 PROCESS 2
CW, IN

C
CW, OUT

PROCESS 3
m

PROCESS 4

Example: One contaminant

From Wang and Smith, ,-Wastewater Minimization, Chemical Engineering Science, 1994, 49(7):981-1006
Processing Unit Process 1 Process 2 Process 3 CIN, max COUT,max Contaminant Limiting Water (ppm) (ppm) Generation (kg/h) Flowrate (t/h) 0 50 50 100 100 800 2 5 30 20 100 40

Process 4

400

800

10

Sum: 41 kg/h

From C:s and Gener.

Data Analysis
Processing Unit Process 1 Process 2 Process 3 Process 4
PROCESS 1
500 400

CIN, max (ppm) 0 50 50 400

500

COUT,max (ppm) 100 100 800 800

Contaminant Generation (kg/h) 2 5 30 4

Limiting Water Flowrate (t/h) 20 100 40 10 170 t/h 20 t/h

PROCESS 1

PROCESS 2

Process 1
C (ppm)

400 300 200 100 0

Process 2

C (ppm)

300 200 100 0 0 2 4 6 8

10

10

PROCESS 3 m (kg/h)
1000 800

PROCESS 4 m (kg/h)
1000 800

50 t/h
FRESH WATER 112.5 t/h PROCESS 2

Process 3
C (ppm)

Process 4

37.5 t/h
PROCESS 3

WASTE WATER 112.5 t/h

C (ppm)

600 400 200 0 0 10 20 m (kg/h) 30

600 400 200 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 m (kg/h)

5 t/h
PROCESS 4

Pinch Analysis
Composite Curves
800 700 600
C (ppm) C (ppm)

800 700 600

C (ppm)

800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 0 10 20 m (kg/h) 30 40 0 10 20 m (kg/h) 30 40

500 400 300 200 100 0 0 10 20 m (kg/h) 30 40

500 400 300 200 100 0

PINCH

2 5

20

Pinch Analysis
Composite Curves
Concentration interval, ppm Process 1, kg/h Process 2, kg/h Process 3, kg/h Process 4, kg/h Total , kg/h Accumulated, kg/h

0 - 50

50 - 100
100 - 400 400 - 800 Total

2
12 16 4 4

8
12 20 41

9
21 41

30

Pinch Analysis
Composite Curves
800 700 600
C (ppm) C (ppm)

800 700 600

C (ppm)

800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 0 10 20 m (kg/h) 30 40 0 10 20 m (kg/h) 30 40

500 400 300 200 100 0 0 10 20 m (kg/h) 30 40

500 400 300 200 100 0

PINCH

2 5

20

1 8

12

20

Pinch Analysis
Composite Curves
800 700 600
C (ppm)
Limiting Water Profile

(CW, OUT)max

500 400 300 200 100 0 0 10 20 m (kg/h) 30 40

(CW, IN) max

1 8

12

20

Pinch Analysis
Composite Curves
90 t/h
800 700 600
C (ppm) C (ppm)

800 700 600

C (ppm)

800 700 600 500 400 300 200 100 0 0 10 20 m (kg/h) 30 40 0 10 20 m (kg/h) 30 40

500 400 300 200 100 0 0 10 20 m (kg/h) 30 40

500 400 300 200 100 0

PINCH

2 5

20

1 8

12

20

Water distribution

Water distribution
90 ton/h 0 ppm 20 ton/h 0 ppm 70 ton/h 0 ppm 2 kg/h P1 50 ton/h 0 ppm 20 ton/h 0 ppm

20 ton/h 100 ppm

5 kg/h 50 ton/h 100 ppm 20 ton/h 800 ppm 20 ton/h 800 ppm 5.7 ton/h 800 ppm

P2

44.3 ton/h 100 ppm 5.7 ton/h 100 ppm

16 kg/h P3 14 kg/h

4 kg/h P4

45.7 ton/h 800 ppm

Water distribution
Concentration interval, ppm Process 1, kg/h Process 2, kg/h Process 3, kg/h Process 4, kg/h Total , kg/h Accumulated, kg/h

0 - 50

1 (1)

50 - 100
100 - 400 400 - 800 Total

1 (1)

5 (5)

2 (2)
12 (6) (6) 16 (8) (8) 4 (4) 4 (4)

8
12 20 41

9
21 41

2 (2)

5 (5)

30(16)(14)

Example: One contaminant

From Wang and Smith, ,-Wastewater Minimization, Chemical Engineering Science, 1994, 49(7):981-1006
Processing Unit Process 1 Process 2 Process 3 CIN, max COUT,max Contaminant Limiting Water (ppm) (ppm) Generation (kg/h) Flowrate (t/h) 0 50 50 100 100 800 2 5 30 20 100 40

Process 4

400

800

10

Sum: 41 kg/h

From C:s and Gener.

Water distribution

One Possible Solution

Process 4
44.3 t/h

Process 3

20 t/h

Process 2

Process 1
20 t/h 70 t/h

Water 90 t/h

Possible designs

Choose e.g. from economical considerations

Further possibilities: Minimum regeneration and minimum fresh water use

Further possibilities: Minimum regeneration and minimum fresh water use

800 700 600
C (ppm)

500 400 300 200 100 0 0 10 20 m (kg/h) 30 40

Regeneration flowrate. At the pinch

fws(CPINCH C0) fwsCPINCH

CPINCH C0

CPINCH

mPINCH

Regeneration flowrate. At the pinch

Minimum regeneration

Minimum fresh water use

Minimum Regeneration

Water distribution
46.2ton/h 0 ppm 20 ton/h 0 ppm 26.2 ton/h 0 ppm 19 ton/h 6.1 ton/h 100 ppm 100 ppm P1 P2 2 kg/h 20 ton/h 100 ppm 2.62 kg/h 26.2 ton/h 100 ppm 25.1 ton/h 5 ppm 21.1 ton/h 5 ppm 4 kg/h P4 46.2ton/h 100 ppm

REGENERATION

2.38 kg/h 25.1 ton/h P2 100 ppm 16.7 kg/h 21.1 ton/h P3 800 ppm

46.2ton/h 5 ppm

P3

5.7 ton/h 100 ppm

13.3 kg/h 19 ton/h 800 ppm 0.4 ton/h 100 ppm

5.7 ton/h 800 ppm

45.8 ton/h 800 ppm

Water distribution
Concentration interval, ppm Process 1, kg/h Process 2, kg/h Process 3, kg/h Process 4, kg/h Total , kg/h Accumulated, kg/h

0 - 50

1 (1)

50 - 100
100 - 400

1 (1)

5 (2.62) (2.38)

2 (2)
12 (6.3) (5.7)

8
12

9
21

400 - 800
Total 2 (2) 5 (2.62) (2.38)

16 (8.4) (7.6)
30 (16.7) (13.8)

4 (4)
4 (4)

20
41

41

Minimum Regeneration

Minimum Fresh water

Minimum Fresh water

Minimum Fresh water

Water distribution
20 ton/h 0 ppm 2 kg/h P1 18.9 ton/h 100 ppm 33.7 ton/h 100 ppm

46.2ton/h 100 ppm

20 ton/h 100 ppm

REGENERATION

73.7 ton/h 5 ppm

P3 13.3 kg/h 18.9 ton/h 800 ppm

5 kg/h 52.6 ton/h P2 100 ppm

52.6 ton/h 5 ppm

21.1 ton/h 5 ppm

16.7 kg/h 21.1 ton/h P3 800 ppm

28 ton/h 5.7 ton/h REGENERATION 100 ppm 100 ppm 4 kg/h REGENERATION P4

REGENERATION 5.7 ton/h 800 ppm

Water use. Cost optimization

FRESH REGENERATED IMPLICATIONS 90 Ton/h 46.2 Ton/h 20 Ton/h 0 Ton/h Minimum fresh water 46.2 Ton/h Reduce fresh water Reduce wastewater 73.7 Ton/h Increase water treatment

Linnhoff March approach

By Linnhoff March (now KBC)

List of available sources

flow rates and contaminant levels flow rates and contaminant levels

List of demanded flows (sinks)

cumulative chart gives pinch and

fresh water needed waste water produced process flows and improvements

Sources, Sinks and Unit Operations

Process. Water flow rates are fixed. Utility. Water flow rates can be changed (i.e., city water). May have minimum and maximum flow limits together with two cost terms: fixed cost and variable cost.

Sink: The point at which water is consumed. Source: The point at which a supply of water is available. Unit Operation: A piece of equipment or processing unit that acts as both a sink and source for water (takes water in and sends water out).

Example: One contaminant

From Wang and Smith, ,-Wastewater Minimization, Chemical Engineering Science, 1994, 49(7):981-1006 SINKS
Processing Unit Process 1 Process 2 Process 3 CIN, max COUT,max Contaminant Limiting Water (ppm) (ppm) Generation (kg/h) Flowrate (t/h) 0 50 50 100 100 800 2 5 30 20 100 40

Process 4

400

800

10

SOURCES

Project Targets

Waste Minimization: Meeting new environmental regulations. Minimizing the cost of fresh material / waste disposal. Site Expansion. Likely to need additional fresh water and waste P3 water capacity. P1 S1
RC
RA A B

P3
C

RA

RB

Avoiding new waste treatment or disposal facilities. Overcoming fresh water availability problems. Avoiding high fees for fresh water / waste disposal.

P2

S2

P1 P2

RB

S1 S2

A B

Debottlenecking. Water systems can be a bottleneck for the overall production process: P3 P1 Cooling tower throughput. S1 S2 P2 Batch vessel washing. Pump capacity.
RA A B RB

RA

P1 P2

P3 S1 S2
A B

RB

Basic Data Required

Water flows. Key contaminant concentrations. Start with existing concentration values. For sinks, if you can identify the maximum allowable concentrations, consider these. Utility costs. For each utility to be considered: cost of fresh water, cost of discharge, operating cost of existing treatments. Environmental Limits.

Geographical data. Physical location of sources and sinks within the system, together with capital and operating cost terms based on distance and flow (to get simpler network designs). Cost data. Fixed cost and variable cost terms for utility items and connections Treatment and Regeneration specifications: performance characteristics for the equipment together with cost information. Bounds for selected variables.

Additional data:

Selecting Key Contaminants

A key contaminant is "Any property that prevents the direct re-use of a waste water stream.

color, temperature, suspended solids, and others. often the plant operators have valuable contributions. Anywhere between 3 and 15 contaminants simultaneously in a study. Good results by considering only 2-5 contaminants for particular sub-sections of a study. Select 1, 2 or 3 contaminants to make the analysis easy (particularly if you are new to this technology). If you have too many contaminants defined you may make the analysis difficult and your data collection will take longer and cost more.

How many?

Key questions to ask when selecting contaminants

Will re-use of water containing this contaminant cause a problem with the process? If it does not cause a problem, you do not need to consider it. Can high levels of the contaminant go to waste? If not, you will need to consider it when looking at the final effluent. Is the contaminant a problem downstream? Watch out for product quality issues downstream. Is the contaminant a problem in just one part of the system? If this is the case, you could exclude it from the selected contaminants, and use bounds to prevent reuse of the contaminated water to that part of the system.

Recommended Procedures

Group contaminants into types: Measurements that describe groups of contaminants:

COD (chemical oxygen demand), TOC (total organic content) Suspended solids, Dissolved salts, conductivity. Organics, Alcohols and others!

Check existing sources of data: Ideally, the concentration levels should not be difficult or expensive to obtain:

Existing material balances Routine measurements Previous studies Laboratory archives

Math-Derived Limitations

Contaminants do not react with each other when streams are blended. This limits the scope for representing chemical reactions that increase or reduce contaminant load. Contaminants blend linearly. Whenever two or more streams are mixed, each contaminant is assumed to obey the standard rules of mass balance (conservation of mass, etc.), without interacting with other contaminants. Contaminants have linear units of measure. Nonlinear measurements such as pH cannot be easily represented.

Identify Sources and Sinks

If you could change either the source or sink connection for a water stream and still make the same quality product, then the source and sink should be included in the analysis.

Select streams that are relevant for the project objectives

Steams that contribute significantly to the contaminant load Streams with significant flow rates.

Steam and Condensate. There are two types of steam users to consider:

Steam users that return clean condensate to be re-used are often excluded Steam users that do not return condensate for re-use are included

Streams to exclude:

Aqueous "Process streams" that cannot be changed (example: product from reactor A to reactor B) Atmospheric losses from cooling towers, vents, etc. Feed, product, or intermediate streams that contain water.

Identify Utilities and Costs

Utility: source, sink or unit operation whose water flow rates can be changed during the water pinch analysis. Typical utilities for a water pinch study include:
Utility Sources Town / city water Demineralized water Well water Utility Sinks Final effluent discharge Road / rail / ship disposal Utility Unit Operations Filters Reverse osmosis Biological treatment

For each utility you should know realistic costs on a consistent basis. For new treatment equipment, the cost might also be chosen to reflect the technological risk of untried or unproven technologies.

Common Unit Operations

Reverse Osmosis Backwash Filter Precipitator Dissolved Air Flotation Air Stripper Steam Stripper Ion Exchange Generic Treater

Source/demand chart

Design and Water Allocation

Graphical methods not always useful

especially if several contaminants

Problem solved with mathematical optimization algorithms (MILP-MINLP)

give ultimate optimum?

Commercial programs exist (WaterTargetTM)

Optimization approaches
min Z f ( x , y ) s.t . g( x , y ) 0
n L U

Mixed-integer Linear/Nonlinear Programming

Objective function Constraints

x X , y Y X { x | x R , x x x , Bx b} Y { y | y {0,1} , Ay a}
m

f(x,y) and g(x,y) linear => MILP

Branch and Bound Beale (1958), Balas (1962), Dakin (1965) Cutting planes Gomory (1959), Balas et al (1993) Branch and cut Johnson, Nemhauser & Savelsbergh (2000) Branch and Bound method Ravindran and Gupta (1985) Tawarmalani,Sahinidis (2002) Generalized Benders Decomposition Geoffrion (1972) Outer-Approximation Duran & Grossmann (1986), Fletcher & Leyffer (1994)

f(x,y) and g(x,y) nonlinear => MINLP

Summary

Water management demanded by: environmental limits water availability and price reduced effluents (amount, concentrations) energy consumption and price Some reductions in fresh water consumption can be achieved by heuristics and pinch technology analysis Bigger reductions / total closure demands internal cleaning Water allocation and energy demand interact with each other: analyze simultaneously?.

Water Management through Pinch technology

Jose R. Alvarez

Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering UNIVERSITY OF OVIEDO