Optimal Design of Batch Water Network with a Flexible Scheduling Framework

The rising costs of water utilization activities, as well as stricter environmental regulation, have necessitated the employment of water saving technologies in chemical industry, especially for batch chemical processes. Optimal scheduling can significantly affect the performance of the water network in batch processes. In this work an insight-based method is introduced to synthesize flexible batch water networks. A ranking matrix is presented to determine the priority of source-sink matches which exhibit the maximum recovery potential of reusable water. Insight obtained from the ranking can assist to perform water integration activities which considers the time constraints of batch operations. The obtained water-using network achieves the goal of minimum freshwater requirement and meets time constraints of process scheduling. Three examples are introduced to show the application of this insight-based method. A single contaminant problem with reuse scenario and regeneration scenario is considered in the first example. In the regeneration scenario, a regeneration process with a fixed outlet concentration is taken into account. Batch water systems with multiple contaminants are considered in the second example. A regeneration unit with fixed removal ratios is introduced to purify the wastewater. In the third example, a fixed flow rate problem is considered. Results show that this insight-based method can be used as an effective approach for design of batch water networks