Process design and economic evaluation of condensate recycling process for steam consumption reduction

This study focused on the epoxy resin production process, which uses the steam of 155 ℃ or higher as a heat source, and discards all condensate generated. A part of the process is operated at low temperatures of 70 ℃ or below, thus there are opportunities to reduce the steam consumption by recycling wasted condensate as a heat source for the low temperature section of process. In this study, we developed process models that can reduce steam by recovering waste heat through recycling condensate and conducted a case study to find an optimal condensate recycling system. Three different process designs were proposed and economic evaluations were performed by comparing annual capital costs and steam savings in each case. Finally, an annual steam consumption of the low-temperature section could be reduced by up to 67.6%, which could also bring an additional economic benefit of 522.1 million won/yr.