Heat exchanger network synthesis considering detailed thermal-hydraulic performance: Methods and perspectives

Heat exchanger network synthesis is an essential optimisation tool for Process Integration, particularly in energy-intensive industries. Proper design or retrofit of heat exchanger network can enable energy conservation, efficiency improvement, and process debottlenecking. Many earlier pieces of research have focused on the impact of the network structure and process features such as network topology, temperature intervals, continuous/batch processes, and so on. As the major device in heat exchanger networks, heat exchangers research has always been a hot topic. However, the individual heat exchanger research is different from the number of heat exchangers in a network. Various performance aspects of the heat exchangers, e.g., pressure drop, fouling, and thermal performance, could influence the whole network and the passive responses between each heat exchanger. Besides, integrating those aspects of individual heat exchangers into the network synthesis is still an open problem, especially for cases that demand simultaneous optimisations. This work presents a thorough assessment of research into those aspects in heat exchanger networks, as well as the state-of-the-art of current approaches for heat exchanger networks optimisation that take heat exchanger performance into account. The essential coupling among fouling, pressure drop and thermal design is explored, and the nexus between them and the heat exchanger network is analysed. Researchers will benefit from this overview of heat exchanger network synthesis retrofitting methods and applications.