Minimization of total drying costs for a continuous packed-bed biomass dryer operating at an integrated chemical pulp and paper mill
Journal article, 2014

This paper presents a MILP (Mixed Integer Linear Programming) model for a continuous packed-bed biomass dryer. The model minimizes total drying costs, including both capital and operational costs, of the dryer. Heated air, which flows through a biomass bed and perforated conveyor, is used as drying gas by the dryer. We define the dryer size with the help of an experimentally-measured characteristic drying curve. The MILP model is tested in a case study where the dryer is assumed to have been installed at a Scandinavian pulp and paper mill. There are three different heat sources available for the heating of drying air: warm water at 60 °C, warm water at 80 °C and backpressure steam at the pressure of 0.4 MPa. The results indicate that, in practice, the use of only low-temperature warm water flows for heating of drying air is the most economic method when their prices are low (below 1 € MWh-1 in the case study). Warm water flows are usually waste heat from pulp and paper mills and their prices are low compared to the price of back-pressure steam (typically from 10 to 15 € MWh-1). The use of steam for drying may be reasonable if the price of warm water is for some reason clearly higher than the price of a typical waste-heat stream. The MILP model presented in this work can be used for minimizing drying costs of any material (not only biomass) dried in a continuous packed-bed dryer if the characteristic drying curve of the material is available.

optimization

waste heat

MILP model

operational costs

biomass dryer

capital costs

Author

Henrik Holmberg

Aalto University

Johan Isaksson

Industrial Energy Systems and Technologies

Risto Lahdelma

Aalto University

Biomass and Bioenergy

0961-9534 (ISSN) 18732909 (eISSN)

Vol. 71 431-442

Driving Forces

Sustainable development

Subject Categories

Energy Engineering

Computational Mathematics

Energy Systems

Areas of Advance

Energy

DOI

10.1016/j.biombioe.2014.09.010

More information

Latest update

3/19/2018