Water Recovery as By-Product of the Heat Recovery System
Water saving measures for industrial sector are taking in account each droplet of consumed water but do not consider water which is evaporated into the atmosphere. In significant amount of industrial processes, such as drying furnaces and baking ovens, water (in gaseous form –vapor) escapes with industrial exhaust into the atmosphere. On the other hand, an evaporation process is associated with the significant consumption of fuel. Thus, unaccounted amounts of energy and water are emitted to the atmosphere and could be saved if it is recovered and reused. In practice, energy and water savings meet serious barriers due to lack of adequate assessment of heat and humidity content of exhaust and off-the-shelf technology to perform an efficient condensation-heat transfer process. Smart Heat innovative system can efficiently recover humid exhaust heat with vapor condensate. This condensate re-usage provides decrease process fresh water consumption up to 20%.
Latent Heat Exchanger Efficiency
Modern enhancement of condensing heat transfer technologies is focused primarily on extension and quality of heat transfer surface. However the overall heat transfer of these technologies is still limited by misbalanced transition of latent-to-sensible heat transfer from condensation to cooling media. Smart Heat Inc. has performed investigation of latent heat transfer mechanism depending on mass transfer for the condensing-evaporating heat exchanger. Stable distribution of released latent heat along heat transfer surface can provide optimal parameters of heat and mass for most efficient heat recovery and rich maximum efficiency for humidification process. The condensing heat-mass exchanger (HMX) is created by Smart Heat Inc. for humid exhaust heat and water recovery. Smart technological integration (spiral channels, heat pipes, water separator) in the developed HMX concept, enabled the optimal conditions for efficient heat transfer during condensation-evaporation, as compared to existing condensing technologies
Poly-Latent Energy Exchanger (PLEX) Design Overview
Integrated Heat and Mass Recovery from Industrial Exhausts
The maximum efficiency of the HMX could be obtained by balancing latent heat transfer from exhaust gas cooling, through intense heat transfer via heat pipes, and finally enable the water evaporation for process air saturation. The most efficient operation of the HMX concept is in applications where recovered heat can be used for air or gas heating and humidification. In many applications concerning humid exhaust, heat and water can be converted into useful input of heat and water for neighboring application that otherwise use independent energy and water sources. In the case of industrial baking, this is dough proofer. In HVAC systems, this is air humidification provided by heat from furnace exhaust. Any appropriate application for the HMX concept must be carefully analyzed, and the HMX design and parameters can be adjusted to maximize the performance efficiency and cost-effectiveness of operation.
Waste Heat Recovery Sink: Humidification of Industrial Process Flows
Among medium and low temperature waste heat sources, the wet exhausts are the most promising for recovery, due to their high content of waste vapor. Usually wet product is dried or heated by the fuel combustion process (in ovens, furnaces, heaters, driers, etc.). Evaporated water escapes with hot exhaust into the atmosphere. These types of hot and humid exhaust streams can serve as inexpensive, emission-free energy sources and, most importantly, as a reliable water source. One of the major reasons for neglecting these sources is a lack of appropriate heat sinks (consumers of recovered heat and water). Smart Heat team has developed a new technical solution to complete the water-energy cycle. The energy recovered from the main process’ exhaust replaces the energy required for establishing the warm and wet environment around the product. Implementation of the developed technical solution to the industrial baking operations may provide heat input for proofer humid and warm air preparation and save fuel by boiler replacement, replace some water consumption by recovery of condensate from the exhaust vapor.
Muffler With Heat Recovery
About 33% of energy used in a vehicle is lost with exhaust gases. So about 9.3 quadrillion Btu (1/3 of fuel consumed annually by USA transportation ) is going to atmosphere and heat it…Medium- and heavy-duty trucks make up 7 % of all vehicles on U.S. highways, yet consume more than 25 percent of the oil. Around 50 years ago, automotive companies tried to recover lost energy by the exhaust with heat exchanger equipment. However, since their solution was low in efficiency, took up too much space, and required additional fuel consumption, the idea was stopped. Recent researchers have used more advanced heat transfer solutions which can satisfy the size and temperature requirements needed to achieve heat recovery efficiency. There is, however, another problem: heat exchanger, extra step in exhaust system, will cause additional pressure drop. That will results in additional fuel consumption causing heat recovery to remain inefficient.Novel muffler with heat recovery (M-HR) designed by Smart Heat Inc. integrates the heat transfer and acoustic wave’s reduction function in one technical device. Integration of the muffler and FB-exchanger in M-HR provides a double effect such as noise reduction by fluidized bed and heat transfer improvement via acoustic wave absorption.