Conserving energy by optimizing the heat exchanger networks of glyphosate production with pinch technology

Yuan, Zengwei ; Zhu, Yanan ; Wang, Yuan ; Zhang, Ling;

China is one of the largest glyphosate producers
in the world. The production process consumes a large
amount of energy and discharges a huge volume of
wastewater. In the glyphosate production system, the byproduct
recovery process consumes the largest amount of
energy. To conserve energy consumption and minimize
wastewater discharge, the study applies pinch technology
to optimize the heat exchanger network of the by-product
recovery subsystem. The results show that the optimal
temperature for the process is 8C. Theoretically, the
optimized heat exchanger network has the potential to
reduce the annual consumption of steam, condensed water,
and the freshwater resource by 1.53, 26.84 and 56.72%,
respectively, when compared with current consumption
levels. At the same time, the total annual cost can be
reduced by 100,000 dollars per year, which means that the
optimization can achieve the win–win objective of the
economic and environmental benefits in the glyphosate
production process.