Determination of Optimal Mass Separating Agent for the Removal of Pollutants from Industrial Wastes Using Mass Exchanger Network Synthesis.

Abstract

Wastes and emissions from chemical plants have over the years contributed to the environmental pollutions. End-of-pipe treatments alone cannot effectively mitigate the effects of chemical processing facilities because of their complexity, it is important for pollution prevention to be considered from the beginning of chemical process synthesis steps. Therefore, this study focuses on the determination of optimal mass separating agent (MSA) for the removal of a pollutant from industrial wastes using mass exchanger networks synthesis (MENS). Pinch y-y* tool was used to determine the most suitable external MSA for MENS problem with multiple MSAs (S3, S4, S5 and S6) and to target for capital cost and total annual cost (TAC) for the network before actual design. From the result of the designs, MSA (S3) shows to be the most suitable and economical, followed by S6, S4 and S5 respectively. It can be inferred from the results that these methods can be used to screen and select MENS problems with multiple MSAs options quickly and effectively. This also reduces the design cost as well as minimizing the emission of pollutants into the environment.