Applying Pinch Technology to Optimize Furnaces and Reduce Air Pollution

Drying Oil is a material used to make paint looks more polished. Given that the reaction producing optimized production (Drying Oil) is endothermic, the feed is preheated up to 3800 in a furnace before entering into the reactor. Considering T delta of the furnace (2310) energy consumption in this equipment would be high and since its energy comes from burning natural gas, air pollution would be resulted. Based on the process map, the value of injected gas into the furnace is equal to 90 kmole/h. On the other hand, given heavy compounds such as hexane, heptane and octane in the fuel of furnace, production of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and water vapor is higher than the standard level because of burning reactions, which can be considered as a major threat to the environment. In this research preheating furnace was optimized and a method developed to reduce the consumption of natural gas using the pinch technology. Our suggested method implies that consumption of energy in furnace can be optimized by using a heater and heat exchanging between cold current (feed) and hot current (production resulted from the reactor). According to the results, by using the suggested method natural gas consumption in furnace may be reduced up to 79 percent and prevent pollutants from diffusing.

pinch technology, heater, furnace, optimization