Application of Water Source Diagram (WSD) method for the reduction of water consumption in petroleum refineries

A.A. Ulson de Souza, E. Forgiarini, H.L. Brandão, M.F. Xavier, F.L.P. Pessoa and S.M.A. Guelli U. Souza

Resources, Conservation & Recycling, 2009, vol. 53, issue 3, 149-154

Abstract: The chemical, petrochemical, textile and paper and cellulose industries consume great quantities of water and there is an ever increasing demand to minimize this consumption as natural water resources become scarcer. Also, the tendency for the cost of water and of effluent treatment to increase, due to new restrictions regarding discharges to the environment, has led to the necessity to minimize industrial water consumption, increasingly favoring the development of new methodologies for the optimization of the use of these resources. Of the many approaches which have been developed, the Water Source Diagram (WSD) is highlighted since it offers a flexible and dynamic alternative for the generation of different scenarios for the management of water networks with the reduction of consumption. In this study, the implementation of the method in a petroleum refinery with six operations which consume water, where four contaminants are present with different permissible input values for each operation, is investigated. The cases of maximum water reuse, regenerative end-of-pipe treatment and differentiated regeneration were studied. In the differentiated regeneration system, there was an important reduction in the water consumption, with a recycle rate of 37.93ton/h in regenerator 2 and 14.02 in regenerator 3. It was observed that with the application of the WSD method the water consumption was substantially reduced, in some cases obtaining a reduction in water consumption greater than those reported in the literature.

Keywords: Water consumption; Reuse; Minimization; Recycling; Water sources (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:recore:v:53:y:2009:i:3:p:149-154

DOI: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2008.11.002

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