Thermocompressor Design for Efficient Energy Recovery of Paper Production Plant Dryers

Abstract

The operational performance of a paper production plant can be significantly improved by appropriate process interventions. This paper deals with energy aspects of the most important section of such a plant, the paper drying section. A significant intenrention that would lower the operational cost of the drying process is proposed. it refers to the recompression of low pressure steam leaving the dryers by means of a thermocompressor that would utilize high pressure steam coming from the plant burners. The mathematical model of the thermocompressor is evaluated and its design procedure is formulated as a mathematical programming problem involving appropriate objective function and constraints.