An MINLP model that includes the effect of temperature and composition on property balances for mass integration networks

Abstract

The synthesis of water networks based on properties has commonly ignored the effect of temperature on the property balances that are part of the formulation. When wide differences of temperatures are observed within the process, such an effect might yield significant errors in the application of conventional property balances. In this work, a framework for the development of water networks that include temperature effects on property balances is presented. The approach is based on the inclusion of constants in the property operators that are commonly used to carry out the property balances. An additional term to take care of composition effects is also included. The resulting approach is embedded into a formulation based on a mixed-integer nonlinear programming model for the design of water networks. A case study is presented that shows that the proposed approach yields an improvement in the prediction of the resulting properties for the integrated network, thus affecting the optimal solution.