Simulations of Evaporation Plants in Kraft Pulp Mills: Including Lignin Extraction and Use of Excess Heat
Doctoral thesis, 2009

In this thesis, evaporation plants at kraft pulp mills are simulated with the purpose of making them more energy efficient. The work is important since energy saving is assumed to be one of the major solutions for handling the world's energy demand in the future. Pulp and paper mills can do much in this respect; they represent almost 50% of the energy consumption in Swedish industry. In kraft pulp mills, the greatest energy demand is usually in the evaporation plant. To simulate the plants, an existing tool was developed and used; important parameters for the simulations are the amount of water evaporated, the number of evaporation effects, and the solids content profile of the evaporation train. The evaporation plants are assumed to be situated in a model mill resembling typical Scandinavian market pulp mills. To assure realistic assumptions, the project was conducted in cooperation with industrial representatives in a national research programme. Previous research shows that great energy savings can be obtained in evaporation plants by reusing excess heat, provided that excess heat can be made available in the mill. Evaporation plants that reuse excess heat are called process-integrated (PI) plants. The energy surplus resulting from the savings could be exported from the mill to replace fossil fuels. For example, the surplus could be extracted as the energy-rich component lignin. As an excerpt of the results, 26% of the live steam could be saved in the evaporation plant by employing a 7-effect PI plant (1.0 GJ/ADt of excess heat) instead of a modern 7-effect conventional plant. The additional profit for PI plants was 0.3–1.5 €/ADt in comparison with conventional plants (for the conditions in Paper 6). With predictably higher energy prices in the future, the profits from energy-saving measures could increase further. As an example of the results for lignin extraction, an evaporation plant with 190 kg/ADt lignin extraction (LE) requires 12% more live steam than a plant without LE. Should the viscosity of lignin-lean black liquor be as low as recent experiments indicate, the investment cost for a plant with LE may be only 5% higher than that for a plant without LE. An overall conclusion from the cooperative work is that LE may be economically interesting for pulp mills, at least in connection with increased pulp production. However, the results depend greatly on the electricity and lignin prices.

kraft pulp mill.

lignin extraction

heat integration

process integration

energy saving

excess heat

simulation

Energy-efficient evaporation

modelling

KC
Opponent: Professor Paul Stuart, Department of Chemical Engineering, École Polytechnique, Montréal, Québec, Canada

Author

Marcus Olsson

Industrial Energy Systems and Technologies

A tool for simulating energy-efficient evaporation using excess heat in kraft pulp mills

Proceedings of the 2007 Engineering, Pulping & Environmental Conference, Oct 21-24, 2007, Jacksonville, FL, USA,; (2007)

Paper in proceeding

Increased capacity in kraft pulp mills: Lignin separation and reduced steam demand compared with recovery boiler upgrade

Nordic Pulp and Paper Research Journal,; Vol. 21(2006)p. 485-492

Journal article

Heat integration opportunities in average Scandinavian kraft pulp mills: Pinch analyses of model mills

Nordic Pulp and Paper Research Journal,; Vol. 21(2006)p. 466-475

Journal article

Exporting lignin or power from heat-integrated kraft pulp mills: A techno-economic comparison using model mills

Nordic Pulp and Paper Research Journal,; Vol. 21(2006)p. 476-484

Journal article

Subject Categories

Chemical Process Engineering

ISBN

978-91-7385-300-2

Doktorsavhandlingar vid Chalmers tekniska högskola. Ny serie: 2981

Publication - Department of Heat & Power Technology, Chalmers University of Technology: 2009:1

KC

Opponent: Professor Paul Stuart, Department of Chemical Engineering, École Polytechnique, Montréal, Québec, Canada

More information

Created

10/8/2017