Abstract
This study covered the introduction of simultaneous heat and mass exchanger networks. A commercial simulator module was developed as a user interface to retrieve supplemental data from the ASPEN PLUS simulator and to communicate with the optimizer, the general algebraic modeling system. The model formulation for the network could be classified in the class of mixed-integer nonlinear programming optimization models. All the available constraints for the model were linear, but the target for the minimum total annual cost, as the objective function of the model, was nonlinear. Therefore, the operating costs for mass separation agents and external hot and cold utilities, along with the annualized equipment costs for heat and mass exchangers, could be minimized simultaneously. Three case studies from the literature were used to illustrate the proposed procedure. From the results, the synthesis of the combined heat and mass exchanger networks can satisfy the heat and mass balance of the process and obtain the lowest total annual cost for the network.
