This interview with Professor Hussam Jouhara, Scientific Technical Director of the iWAYS project, explores the development of the Heat Pipe Condensing Economiser (HPCE). Jouhara discusses the challenges and successes in creating this technology, which significantly reduces industrial energy consumption and emissions by recovering waste heat and water. Supported by the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme, the HPCE has the potential to transform industry practices, making factories more efficient and environmentally friendly.
What inspired you to develop the heat pipe condensing economiser?
“In industry, any enhancement to efficiency is welcome, especially with energy costs nowadays. The iWAYS project came as a follow up from a previous project called ETEKINA, where we demonstrated the value of the heat pipe technology to recover waste heat back to the factory and make it usable, leading to direct saving on fuel consumption. iWAYS is more about building on that success and adding to it, significantly. This is the biggest motivation when I thought of the idea for the Heat Pipe Condensing Economiser (HPCE).”
“With the iWAYS project I have the support of many partners. Each partner has a role to play. With such a complicated project, it can’t be done without the support provided by the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme.”
What challenges did you face when designing the HPCE?
“The challenges come from how reliable the data are from the plants. In each plant they would never have the same composition from their exhaust streams.”
“Our project partners helped overcome this challenge by very accurate measurements of these exhausts’ chemical compositions. That allowed me to design the Heat Pipe Condensing Economiser properly. It’s also important to find efficient use for the recovered heat in the factory. So, we worked with plant operators to find uses for the heat where we can save fuel because heat is already available.”
“In the heat pipe condensing economiser, we are condensing impure water from the exhaust stream. It has also corrosive acidic condensates and other contaminants that usually go up in the stack. Now we are capturing them in a liquid form. The challenge was how to neutralise that flow and make that water usable again. Again, partners in the consortium have developed systems that can treat that water and make it usable again.”
How can the HPCE reduce the resourced needed in an industrial plant?
“The HPCE recovers waste heat up to 80% more heat than a plant without it. The biggest achievement is reducing the carbon footprint by recovering heat otherwise generated from burning fossil fuel. The second big achievement of the condensing economiser is recovering the water that would have been in vapour from going up the stack.”
“When we condense this vapour, we have a solution of mainly water, but also the assets that have condensed in the process. You can actually treat them in much more efficient way and try to recycle those materials back from that liquid solution rather than the gas solution.”
The HPCE is installed in the Alufluor democase site, an aluminium fluoride producer in Helsingborg, Sweden. What happens there?
“It is the best demo case that we can dream of for the condensing economiser, because of the very challenging environment the condensing economiser will be working in. We are actually dealing with very harsh chemicals in the exhaust stream that require very careful selection of materials. We will be aiming at recovering at least 40% of the total energy consumed.”
“We looked at a cost-effective design for this and demonstrated that for such a harsh environment, we can actually do a modular and flexible design for the condensing economiser.”
“Since the first of August 2024, the HPCE has been validated. It has since been running and providing all the required heat for the hot water system that the factory needs for their production.”
What do you see as the main benefit of HCPEs for energy intensive industrial production?
“Until now, viable condensing economisers from exhaust streams were not available. What we have demonstrated today is that this is doable using existing materials and knowledge. The heat pipes also allow safer operation, multiple contingency, modular design, and flexible geometry. We can now show the industry that there is an answer here. What businesses see going up their chimneys into the atmosphere, can be stopped, and we can condense and treat it instead. It’s a win-win situation for everyone.”
“It gives the industry more control on the emission side. I believe the chemical industry in particular will find very good use of the condensing economiser, because it will be an addition to energy efficiency, water recycling, and materials recovery. You can apply the same thing to any other industry, but the heavily regulated chemical industry in particular will benefit the most, I believe.”
What difference will it make if more and more industries implement the technology?
“The Heat Pipe Condensing Economiser has been developed with factories with no chimneys in mind. A concept that I have been working on since 2013. My dream for the future is a factory where we can actually breathe the exhaust coming out of it. There won’t be any fumes, it will only be safe gases. With the success of our first installation in Alufluor, I believe we are almost there to make this dream a reality.”
This interview was published in the December 2024 issue of Heat Exchanger World Magazine.