Presented Problem: Compare Energy use in product recovery by extraction to old distillation process.
History: The old process had been worked on decades ago, and recently updated by 4 engineers. The engineering management felt the old distillation process was close to optimized and should be used as-is for comparison to extraction.
Core Problems:
Old process needed far more heat recovery to be economical
Old process didn’t capture of BTU value of vent gas.
Needed to create selection criteria for extraction solvents to focus Aspen work.
Process Results:
Cut steam use on old process by 64%.
Selection criteria eliminated most solvents from further consideration.
Screened 40+ solvents. Modeled separations for 8 solvents in Aspen.
Stopped modeling when energy use by extraction process exceeded energy use by new distillation process.
Business Results:
If built, changes will add ~$5MM in capital but save ~$80MM/yr in energy.
3 ROIs (Record of Inventions) filed. (contact me for more info on this)
Bloomdahl Engineering 