Cost Saving of the Explosive Waste Incineration Process via an Optimal Heat Exchanger Network

Explosive waste is very dangerous, and it should be incinerated under safe conditions. Currently, a rotary kiln is used to incinerate explosive waste; however, it creates air pollutants such as NO_x more than the government regulation (90 ppm). To this end, the fluidized bed was suggested, and previous study showed that it could be a new-generation incineration method since it creates NO_x less than regulation. Despite impressive results and many approaches to reduce NO_x emissions, it is still insufficient to apply the explosive waste incineration process. This is because this process has been studied only for NO_x emissions so far. Therefore, in this study, the heat exchanger network (HEN) was grafted and optimized to save the energy used in the process as much as possible based on the operating condition from previous study which can emit the minimum NO_x. As a result, it was possible to save 44% of the total cost compared to the existing method without changing the operating conditions. This result is meaningful in that it is important not only to optimize the design condition of the reactor but also to apply the HEN which will be effective to save the process cost.