Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy

, Volume 18, Issue 8, pp 2453–2465 | Cite as

Evaluation of the energy saving opportunities for palm oil refining process: Sahabat Oil Products (SOP) in Lahad Datu, Malaysia

  • Seri Rahimah Lidu
  • Nurul‘Ain Mohamed
  • Jiří Jaromír Klemeš
  • Petar Sabev Varbanov
  • Suzana Yusup
Original Paper
First Online:
Received:
Accepted:

Abstract

Palm Oil industry is one of the major contributors to Malaysia’s economic activity. Accounting for 39 % of the world palm oil production and 44 % of world exports, Malaysia holds an important niche in fulfiling the growing global needs for oils and fats sustainably. This industry has high potential for further improvements especially in terms of energy saving as a major contributor to cost and emission reduction. An analysis of the refining process of palm oil in Sahabat Oil Products, Lahad Datu has been performed and presented in this paper for scoping potential energy and cost savings using heat integration. A first stage optimisation of the minimum temperature difference, ∆T min, of a heat exchanger network (HEN) has been performed. The goal has been to evaluate the maximal possible heat recovery as well as the appropriate placement of utilities. The HEN design is presented in both grid diagram and shifted retrofit thermodynamic grid diagram (SRTGD). SRTGD representation has been illustrated in this paper as a useful tool for guiding eventual future retrofit. The capital-energy trade-off of the heat recovery targets indicates optimum ∆T min of 12.3 °C. The hot and cold utility targets at ∆T min = 12.3 °C are 1419 and 1649 kW, indicating potential saving of 3.5 and 3.1 % as compared to the existing utility consumption and emissions. Future work could proceed further to seek potentially viable retrofit of the existing heat recovery network.

Keywords

Refined bleached deodorised palm oil Heat integration Pinch analysis Composite curves Environmental footprints reduction Shifted retrofit thermodynamic grid diagram 

List of symbols

TS

Supply temperature (°C)

TT

Target temperature (°C)

CP

Heat capacity flowrate (kW/ °C)

\( T_{\text{Cold}}^{*} \)

Shifted temperature for cold stream (°C)

\( T_{\text{Hot}}^{*} \)

Shifted temperature for hot stream (°C)

ΔHi

Heat load (kW)

\( \Delta T_{i}^{*} \)

Temperature interval span (°C)

ΔTmin

Minimum temperature difference (°C)

U

Number of heat exchangers (units)

N

Total number of process streams and utility types (dimensionless)

L

The number of independent loops (dimensionless)

S

Number of subnetworks or subgraphs (dimensionless)

CG

Cost of generating steam (MYR/t)

CF

Cost of fuel (MYR/t)

CW

Cost of raw water supply (MYR/t)

CBFW

Cost of boiler feed water treatment (MYR/t)

CP

Cost of feed water pumping power (MYR/t)

CA

Cost of combustion air fan (MYR/t)

CB

Cost of sewer charges for boiler blow down (MYR/t)

CD

Cost of ash disposal (MYR/t)

CE

Cost of environmental emission control (MYR/t)

CM

Cost of maintenance materials and labour (MYR/t)

aF

Fuel cost (MYR/kg)

HS

Specific enthalpy of steam (kJ/kg)

HW

Specific enthalpy of boiler feed water (kJ/kg)

ηB

Overall boiler efficiency, fractional (1)

MYR

Malaysian Ringgit (currency)

ΔTLMTD

Log mean temperature difference (°C)

U

Overall heat transfer coefficient (W/m2K)

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Notes

Acknowledgments

The authors of this paper would like to thank Mr. Abd Salam bin Hasan and Mr. Rezsha bin Marbek for guidance on the process and providing data which gave the authors an insight on the current practice of Palm Oil Refining in Lahad Datu, Malaysia. The authors would like to extend our gratitude to Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS and Faculty of Information Technology, University of Pannonia, Hungary, under EU “EFENIS - Efficient Energy Integrated Solutions for Manufacturing Industries” project for the support provided.

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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2016

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of Chemical EngineeringUniversiti Teknologi PETRONASBandar Seri IskandarMalaysia
  2. 2.Faculty of Information Technology and BionicsPázmány Péter Catholic UniversityBudapestHungary

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