Nowadays, the world is faced with significant energy problems. Global warming is impeding sustainable society worldwide. For these reasons, energy saving and CO
2 reduction are practices that must be pursued constantly by everyone. The total energy consumption in chemical plants accounts for 15% of that in all industries. Since 40% of the total energy consumption in chemical plants comes from distillation columns, energy savings in the distillation process are in high demand. In distillation, energy conservation has long been a key problem. Separating mixtures by distillation requires a great deal of heat energy. Using recent energy-saving technology, the industry has been able to reduce the heat energy used in chemical plants from that used in earlier technologies. However, the capability of conventional systems has reached its limits. Heat Integrated Distillation Column (HIDiC) is an innovative system which offers some strong and unusual advantages.
This paper provides a brief summary of the system's principles, as well as some of the project's goals and results. The HIDiC system employs a breakthrough concept in the distillation process that can deliver a new, higher capability for saving energy. The HIDiC system, in contrast, makes significantly more utilization of waste heat.
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