Reducing Hot and Cold Utility Requirements for Finishing Column Section Using Pinch Analysis Techniques

Pinch Analysis is a methodology for minimizing energy consumption of chemical plant by maximizing the utilization of hot and cold utilities available within the process, thereby reducing the use of external utilities. It is also known as process integration, heat integration, energy integration or Pinch technology. Pinch technology is applied on various process flow diagrams from chemical industries using different strategies or techniques. These techniques include both graphical procedure (Thermal Pinch diagram) as well as algebraic procedure (Temperature interval diagrams) in order to compare the minimum heating and cooling utility requirement of a process with the actual requirement. In the present work, the process flow diagram of finishing column section is received from a chemical industry and block diagram is prepared for simplification. The hot and cold streams are identified and Pinch analysis techniques are applied in order to find out the minimum heating and cooling utility requirement. With this, the utilities available within the process can be used better and thus energy can be conserved to an extent of 25%.