Study on Application of Heat Pumps in Distillation: A Review

Despite the many well-known benefits of distillation and its widespread use, one major drawback is the significant energy requirements, since distillation can generate more than 50% of plant operating cost. To solve this problem, several technologies were proposed to reduce the energy requirements of distillation, with potential energy savings typically in the range 20–50%.The employment of heat pumps is one of the best possibilities for drastic reduction of the energy demand. Industrial heat pumps are a class of active heatrecovery equipment that allows the temperature of a waste-heat stream to be increased to a higher, more useful temperature Thus, the purpose of this review is to introduce heat-pump technology and its application in industrial processes

Keywords:

heat pump , heat integration , distillation , energy savings