Total Site Heat Integration Using Intermediate Fluid

The integration of total site heat can make better use of the surplus heat of each process. The conventional total site heat integration mainly considers the direct integration, i.e., directly using process streams to transfer heat. However, from the view of safety and control, it is difficult to transport process streams for a long distance. To the contrary, the indirect integration using water, steam or hot oil can avoid such safety and control problems. This paper proposes a total site design methodology, which utilizes the selection of intermediate fluids and the optimization of the parameters of intermediate fluids. The case study shows that the proposed method is practical and can bring a significant energy saving.