(203h) Optimal Synthesis Of WATER Networks Based On Properties Considering Growing Demand Projections

Process industry has waste streams from incomplete reactions or imperfect separations. Also, the processes demand a great amount of raw materials in every process unit. A strategy to decrease the consumption of raw materials while reducing the amounts of generated wastes is the synthesis of mass integration networks. To solve this problem, several strategies have been reported, however an interesting situation that has not been considered previously is the case the plant projects several futures expansion, situation that is very common in the process industry. For these cases, usually the network is synthesizing for the maximum projection, without considering the possibility to readjust the network configuration and operation through the time for the proper management of the projected streams and demands. As consequence, the current used approaches usually produce suboptimal solutions. Therefore, in this work, a systematic method for the synthesis and readjustment through the time of mass exchange networks has been proposed, where treatment units can be installed from the start of the life of process to allow satisfying the needs of the plant through the time and permitting the increase of the production. Also the performance for the treatment units can be improved through the time, and the network can be projected to be reconfigured after the installation of the treatment units. The pipes are considerate in the model involving the possibility of reconfigurations. And finally, the optimization model considers minimizing the total annual cost for the system though the projected life. Figure 1 shown the proposed superstructure for addressing the abovementioned problem.

Figure 1. Proposed superstructure to solve the considered problem.

Several examples have been solved, where the results indicate that the solution obtained using the proposed approach yields better results respect to the solutions when the optimal projection is not considered since the star of the project.

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