A novel flash boosted evaporation process for alumina refineries

Bijan Rahimi, K. Regenauer-Lieb, Hui Chua, E. Boom, S. Nicoli, S. Rosenberg

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

16 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. We have developed a novel flash boosted evaporation process that utilises the available waste heat sources of the evaporation units to reduce live steam consumption for evaporation purpose in alumina refineries. The results show a significant reduction in the live steam consumption of the evaporation plant in one of the major alumina refineries in Western Australia. This system can be attached to the main evaporation process without any process interruption. In this case, the available waste stream is utilised to recover the duty of one of the selected evaporation units, and it shows that the selected unit can be completely turned off, resulting in 82% of its relevant live steam consumption being saved. A detailed capital cost analysis and pumping power consumption evaluation is presented as well. This technology is also applicable to mineral refineries in general that involves re-concentrating liquor and water balance management.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)375-384
Number of pages10
JournalApplied Thermal Engineering
Volume94
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 5 Feb 2016

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