Design of Evaporation Systems and Heaters Networks in Sugar Cane Factories Using a Thermoeconomic Optimization Procedure

Abstract

Sugar cane production in Brazil is one of the most competitive segments of the national economy, producing sugar and ethanol for internal and external markets. Sugar production is done basically in several steps: juice extraction, juice clarification and evaporation, syrup treatment and sugar boiling, crystallization, centrifugation and drying. Much heat exchange equipment is used in this process.. An optimized design of the evaporation system with the correct distribution of the vapor bleed to attend other parts of the process may contribute to exhausted steam demand reduction. This paper presents a thermoeconomic optimization of the evaporation system and the heaters network of a sugar factory, aiming at minimum investments and operation costs. Data from Brazilian sugar factories were used to define the process parameters. The methodology proposed is used to evaluate the cost of the steam consumed by the factory and the optimized design of the equipment.

• An initial version of this paper was published in July of 2006 in the proceedings of ECOS’06, Aghia Pelagia, Crete, Greece. 

Keywords

• sugar cane, sugar process, thermoeconomic optimization, heat recovery, process integration