TPU scientists found a way to reduce production costs at factories

TOMSK, Jul 21 – RIA Tomsk. Chemists of Tomsk Polytechnic University (TPU) have developed a way to save fuel and electricity at oil refineries, which will allow companies to cut production costs and reduce the burden on the environment; the technology can also be used to modernize any industrial production, the university's press service said on Wednesday.

"They (scientists) proposed to reduce energy costs by optimizing the structure of technological and heat flows. A certain sequence of heat exchangers led to an increase in the coefficient of useful energy use. As a result, the consumption of fuel gas and fuel oil decreased by 54% and electricity by 20% at the enterprise where the research was conducted" , – informs the university.

Stanislav Boldyrev, a researcher at TPU Research School of Chemistry & Applied Biomedical Sciences, quoted by the press service, explains the method as follows: "We have three heat fluxes. We heat the first one with steam, the second one is cooled with water, and the third one is heated in a furnace. To save energy resources, we can heat streams number one and three at the expense of the second. There are dozens of such streams at a real plant."

According to him, the proposed approach can be used both for the reconstruction of existing enterprises of the processing sector of the economy and for the design of new, more energy-efficient production facilities with minimal impact on the environment.

"This technology can already be used to improve processes in the chemical and gas processing industries and in food processing. That is, everywhere where raw materials are used and also deal with heating, cooling and chemical transformations", – Boldyrev added.

The results of the study are published in the scientific journal Energy Conversion and Management.