Heat Recorery Systems Vol. 2. No. 3. pp. 247-255, 1982 Printed in Great Britain.

0198-7593 82 030247-09503.00 0 1982 Pergamon Press Ltd

PLATE

HEAT

EXCHANGERS--A LOW-COST HEAT RECOVERY

ROUTE

TO

B. R. LAMB A.P.V. Company Limited P.O. Box No. 4, Manor Royal,Crawley, West Sussex, RH10 2QB, U.K.
Abstract--Plate (and Spiral) heat exchangers provide an excellent means of achieving highly efficient heat recovery because their high heat transfer coefficients, coupled with counter-current flow, enable them to produce close end-temperature differences--important in applying economies to low grade or poor quality heat. Examples are selected from experience and use over very many years in applying heat recovery as an integral part of processes.

INTRODUCTION

IN MOSTchemical processes one obvious way of conserving energy is to recover more of the heat which is dissipated to rivers, the sea and the air. Although much of this heat is at a relatively low temperature and therefore is not usually economically recoverable, some of it can be recovered with the aid of high-efficiency heat exchangers which operate economically with a close temperature approach at relatively low pumping powers. The Paraflow plate heat exchanger is just such a device and is ideally suited to the recovery of low-grade heat. Within its operational pressure and temperature range it is thermally extremely efficient. Heat transfer coefficients are usually higher than those in tubular heat exchangers for similar pressure loss; this, coupled with much lower fouling resistance at higher effective mean temperature differences gives designs of low surface area and therefore low price. For many industrial heat recovery duties, up to four or five years ago a design was considered economic if 85~ of the heat was recovered by recuperation. With the increase in energy costs the current thinking is nearer 92-93.0. As energy prices rise there is a greater need to provide cost effective equipment for energy conservation in all areas of manufacturing. APV has been working closely with manufacturers in numerous industries over many years and continuously developing equipment to meet their needs. Despite the fact that the first commercially successful plate heat exchanger was introduced by APV nearly sixty years ago, it is only recently that it has been considered a serious alternative to shell and tube exchangers for industrial heat transfer duties. This change has occurred with the introduction of multi-contact thin gauge plates which can be pressed in a variety of metals and modern rubber elastomers which have chemical and temperature resistance combined with good sealing properties.
ADVANTAGES O F PLATE HEAT EXCHANGER

The concept and construction of the plate heat exchanger has been well documented but in order to emphasise the advantages of plate heat exchangers over conventional heat exchangers, a summary of the main points are as follows:

(i) High overall coefficients

The shell side of the tubular is thermally inefficient--higher coefficients are obtained with the plate heat exchanger for similar pressure losses. Even in a well designed tubular unit large areas of tube are partially bypassed by liquid and low heat transfer areas thus created. Bypassing in the plate heat exchanger is minimal.
Paper first presented at conference 'Heat Recovering Systems in Process Applications', London, 20-21 October 1981. .,R.s. 2 3-B 247

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B. R: LAMB

Fig. 1. (see text)

(ii) Mean temperature difference

The plate heat exchanger has the advantage of effective mean temperature difference. In the majority of applications the flow in a plate heat exchanger is counter-current and therefore the log mean temperature difference correction factor is 1. This is important when a close approach temperature is required, as occurs in more and more energy recovery systems involving low-grade heat. Figure 1 illustrates a typical plate arrangement for a single-pass design. The flow pattern through the plate passages is clearly indicated and shows the flow to be completely counter-current, thus resulting in no loss of efficiency by correction of mean temperature difference. For a given duty the plate heat exchanger is physically smaller and more compact. Depending upon the plate type, each cubic metre of plate heat exchanger contains 160 or 320 square metres of heat transfer area. By comparison, one cubic metre of tubular exchanger of equilateral triangular pitch with a tube pitch ratio of 1.5 has a surface area of 33 m 2 for 51 mm o.d. tubes or 132 m 2 for 13 mm o.d. tubes. If the ratio of heat transfer coefficient between plate and tubulars is conservatively taken as 2, the PHE volume to meet a given duty varies from 10-20~o of that of the tubular.

(iv) Fouling
Recent test work carried out by APV and Heat Transfer Research Incorporated (HTRI) of the U.S.A. has shown that PHE's have lower fouling characteristics than tubular units. The actual value of fouling factor used for designs depends not only on the characteristics of the process fluids but also the length of run. surface temperature and wall shear stress. Reduction in fouling_resistance is credited to four main features: (l) High degree of turbulence, which increases the rate of foulant removal and results in lower asymptotic value of fouling resd.stance: (2) good velocity profile across the plate: stagnant areas eliminated by the plate design; (3) corrosion maintained at an absolute minimum: (4) smooth heat transfer surfaces. The most important of these is turbulence. HTRI has shown that for tubular heat exchangers, fouling is a function of flow velocity and friction factor. Although flow velocities are low with the plate heat exchanger, friction factors are very high and this results in lower fouling resistance. The effect of velocity and turbulence is plotted in Fig. 2. The lower fouling characteristic of the plate heat exchanger compared to the tubular has been conclusively proved by HTRI test work. In common with all pressure retaining devices, plate heat exchangers have mechanical limitations above certain temperatures and pressures, but for waste heat recovery--as in many other industrial duties--pressure and temperature are moderate and Paraflows are

Plate heat exchangers

Effect

249
"

of velOCity Ond turbUlence

Tut>ulor

-P H E ~

s 5 f t
2 f?
s 8ft s

,,o

Time

Fig. 2. (see text)

therefore highly suitable since their thermal performance advantage becomes very significant for low temperature approach applications. An example is given in Table 1 illustrating the comparison between a plate and a tubular heat exchanger in which the recovery is 70% and, even at this level of recovery, there is a significant advantage for the plate heat exchanger. APV have been associated with heat recovery for many years inasmuch as the standard duty in a number of hygienic applications is pasteurisation in which a product is normally handled at room temperature but, for process reasons, needs to be heated to control, for example, bacteria, and then has to be cooled again to room temperature for storage. Typical examples are milk and beer. Pasteurisers have been in existence for well over 50 years and up until about five years ago it was generally accepted that something of the order of 85% recuperation was viable in terms of plant costs and energy consumption. Table 2. illustrates a typical pasteurising duty and gives an indication of costs and savings for two different recuperation designs. The pasteurising duty is typical of many applications where a product is stored at room temperature and has to be processed at elevated temperatures to control bacteria. The product is at 10C and is to be heated to 93C for pasteurising and then cooled to 10C for storage. It is to be processed at 22.7 m 3 h r - t. (5000 GPH). The cost of a Paraflow exchanger for 85% recuperation Section would be 6000 and for 92% recuperation 10000 and the difference in savings of steam and electricity is 69000. Perhaps five years ago with energy costs of the order of 2.2 to 1000 kg steam and electricity at 1 p/kWh the savings would have been about 20000.

Table 1. Comparison for heating 590000 kg h - 1 water from 23C to 36C using 590000 kg h - 1 water at 42C. Available pressure drops for both streams is 1.0 kg era- 2 Plate Heat Transfer Area [m 2] Heat Transfer Coefficient
[kcal h - t m - 2 C - 1]

Tubular
1218 1575 1361 5.8 1/1

(clean) (design)

448 3388 3173 5.6 0.32/0.33 0.00002 0.00002

Effective mean temperature difference [C] Pressure drop hot fluid/cold fluid [kg cm- 2] Fouling resistance [kcal h - 1 m - 2 C - t] Pass arrangement Approximate purchase price (July 1981)

hot fluid cold fluid

single pass both fluids

37500

0.0001 0.0001 4 tube side 3 shells in series

65000

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B. R. LAMB Table 2
No heat recovery 85'!,, recuperation 10 77 .6--9_ 77- 93 6 8 0 k g h '~ 9_~'~,, recuperation 10--87 16-93 87 93 _~..'"~kgh -~

Heat recovery section temperature ranges [:C] Heat section temperature ranges [:C] Steam required: (assuming latent heat 1000 BTU l b - l) Cost/year at 8.00 per 1000 kg steam and for 6000 h / y e a r - t Cooling to 1 0 C using Cooling water (allowing off temperature of 49C) Cost of cooling water at 120 p/1000 gallons (Using tower water with say 100,o make up) Chilled water section temperature ranges [~C] at cost of 3 p k W h Total cost:

Nil 10-93 3 4 1 0 k g h -~

180000

36000

~14500

(a) Cooling water at 30~C to cool to 32 C (b) Chilled water to cool 32~C 10:C 73m3h 115200 11500 32-10 105000 296500 (using tower waterl 26-10 79000 I 15000 -16-10 31 500 46000 1

From these figures it is not unreasonable to suggest that this order of savings could or should have been in vogue five years ago. However, the design of plate exchangers had limits of the order of 89-90~o recuperation and with the need for higher heat recovery so the designs of plate geometry and pressings have been improved so that 92~0 is now readily achieved and APV are looking towards 94-95,0 recuperation.
PRACTICAL EXAMPLES OF HEAT RECOVERY

A heat recovery system using a plate heat exchanger is installed: in a synthetic fibres factory where hot process water requirements were originally met by mixing cold demineralised water with steam condensate from an evaporation plant. The desircto improve thermal efficiency led to a scheme (Fig. 3) for heating the cold demineralised water with evaporator overheads by means o f a heat exchanger. The condensate was thereby released to return to the boilerhouse. However, because of trace contamination risks, the returned condensate was not suitable for re-use in the boilers without an ion exchange treatment. This treatment is performed at 20C so a regenerative heat exchanger was required. APV supplied a plate heat exchanger with a heat transfer surface area of 3500 ft 2 designed to cool 39000 gat h- t of returned condensate from 82C lo 20C for

Poro~low

........

To

o,oo,

56-clj
Fig. 3.

d,5"c '
Cold rnoke-up wol"er

Plate heat exchangers

251

mixing for treatment. Treated water is then mixed with the necessary amount of fresh make-up water before passing forward to the plant at 56C. The energy savings involved in this scheme amout~ted to some 100000 per year. The important factor here was the ability to get a close temperature approach between the water to and from the ion exchange unit. The plate heat exchanger used is illustrated in Fig. 4. A further heat recovery scheme (Fig. 5) has been installed at a sulphuric acid company in London where, because it was the first of its kind in the U.K., qualified for a substantial grant under the Government's Energy Conservation Demonstration Project Scheme. In this process about 15Yo of the heat released at the absorption stage of the sulphuric acid plant is recovered and used to preheat boiler feed water. Two important features in this particular installation were the sulphuric acid required expensive alloy Hastelloy C

Fig. 4.

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B. R. LAMB

..

84"C

Absorber acid 190"C

OTher aids

~ Ill

,.o, Pora,low ~
6).s'c

Paraflows ~

L
till
lili

L
mill
iili

2oc It|

ii

i!

B ~ e lw ~ t e ;

g 70"C ~lr
Fig. 5,

~Tower

worer

in order to keep the corrosion to minimum and it was also considered prudent to install a closed loop between the sulphuric acid heat recovery exchanger and the exchanger passing the heat into the boiler feed water. Although the scheme involved the use of expensive alloys and a separate Paracool loop, the estimated saving was 37000/year and the payback anticipated is about 18 months. Another recent installation relates to the re-use of heat from a power station. Twothirds of all the fuel that goes into producing electricity is wasted and most of this is discharged to atmosphere as reject heat via cooling towers. In some locations this lowgrade heat is being used for district heating but in the U.K. generating stations are usually isolated and applications are few. However, an enterprising venture has recently been established to take heat from the Drax Power Station to grow tomatoes. The tomatoes are grown under 20 acres of glass and kept at a constant temperature all the year round. Eight APV Paraflows are arranged in four groups of two to heat the solution that feeds the plant roots at the rate of 6400001-1 h- t. The reasons for using plate heat exchangers in this installation are that they give excellent heat transfer and take up very little space. Other very useful heat recovery schemes where Paraflow heat exchangers have been used to good effect include replacement of rack coolers in coke oven #ants .where the extra efficiency of the Paraflow has given closer temperature approaches resulting in a lower steam demand for the final heating--saving more than 1000 lb h - 1 of steam. Extra benefit obtained is a big reduction in maintenance costs. This is a typical example of savings that can be achieved using a more efficient type of heat exchanger.

S*'ril3oir~

C O U lm N

']TU

"U t_

.,oh
,,9 0 i l

j psteam

Wasl~

II

)ll

Fig. 6.

Plate heat exchangers

253

The process (Fig. 6) involves a stripping column (distillation columns are similar examples) where the feed liquor is supplied to the column at an optimum temperature to relate to the point at which the feed enters the column. This requires a steam heater to raise its temperature to the desired level. For the same column, the product leaving from the bottom section has to be cooled. Originally the benzolised oil was passed through a large oil/oil heat exchanger against hot debenzolised oil from the stripping still. Heat recovery was extremely poor and a 10C change of temperature was rarely achieved. Final cooling by an even larger serpentine cooler produced fouling problems with crystallised naphthalene which had to be removed at frequent intervals. The oil circuit was redesigned using two type-R55 Paraflow plate heat exchangers. There was an immediate improvement in heat recovery and a marked reduction in maintenance problems. The Paraflow preheats the benzolised oil by some 35C and saves something like 1000 lb h- 1 steam in the final heating. At the same time, it reduces the temperature of the debenzolised oil to 15C less than previously--hence a water saving on the final cooling. The second Paraflow completes the cooling. There are now several of these installations in operation and the plant engineers at the first plant report several added advantages apart from the obvious reduced steam and water costs--these include reduced installation space; reduced maintenance and fouling problems; better control of process temperatures; no atmospheric pollution; no contamination of cooling water. There is also a simple scheme for recovering heat from flue gases by using a spray recuperator with a plate heat exchanger in the spray water circuit to transfer the heat back to boiler feed water--simple in operation and effective in heat recovery (Fig. 7). As can be seen from the examples given, where there is a heat recovery scheme involving low grade heat, there is a need for an efficient heat exchanger which can achieve close temperature approaches between process liquid and the heat source, the need to avoid inefficiency in the design of the exchanger, i.e. cocurrent flow avoiding cross flow or parallel flow and, with most heat recovery schemes, the ability to provide the ironmongery at a comparatively low cost, these are all within the compass of the Paraflow range of exchangers.

SPIRAL PLATE HEAT EXCHANGERS

The spiral heat exchanger (or SHE) was introduced some fifty years ago for the paper and pulp industry and has since gained acceptance in other processes. Designs have

Boiler

Fig. 7.(see text)

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B.R. LAMB

changed little during this period and the three types of spiral contain the same basic components a spiral annular heat transfer surface, a top cover and a bottom cover. The spiral is manufactured from two strips of sheet metal varying from 250 to 1500 mm wide and of suitable length to match the desired heat transfer area. The strips are carefully wound around each other into a double strip forming one channel for each fluid. The flow gaps, which are fixed by studs welded to the strips before winding, can be independently varied between 5 mm and 25 mm as required. SHEs may be manufactured in several grades of stainless steel, carbon steel and in copper and nickel alloys. They can operate at up to 20 bar pressure and at temperatures of up to 450C. The maximum surface area per umI is 200 m 2 and liquid flow rates of up to 300 m 3 h-1 can be handled. Advantages compared to shell and tube units include greater compactness, negligible maintenance, leakproof design, easy accessibility for inspection and cleaning, and low fouling characteristics. The SHE is ideal for liquid-liquid heat transfer whenever high-temperature heat exchanger is used in handling high-solid suspensions or slurries which tend to foul. or processing liquids which attack rubber elastomers. The compactness of the SHE has led to its wide acceptance on distillation plant for reboiling and condensing duties. In addition, its ability to fit into existing process plant and pipework makes it a useful addition for recovering heat from waste vapours and gases. Spiral heat exchangers are available in three distinct types. Type 1 is essentially for use on liquid-liquid duties where these duties cannot be handled by the Paraflow plate heat exchanger.

Coolant

In

fluid

~j~FHot v a p o u r / g a s in

i~ Coolant our

:Coolant O ~~

X \ J j o -.s, tI UU Lll =-1i . u _

oo, I /
Fig. 8.

oo,,,.,,o,..,

Plate heat exchangers

255

Type 2 is a cross-flow unit which, combined with variable gap geometry, is ideal for condensing large volumes of vapour which pass down through the open annulus formed by the cooling medium flow channel. Type 3 units combine features of both types 1 and 2 and are used for condensing and subcooling vapours. Cross-flow is employed during condensation while countercurrent flow occurs as the condensate flows outward through the closed part of its flow channel and is subcooled by the cooling medium. Spiral heat exchangers can be used over a wide range of industries for heat recovery systems and some typical examples are: coking plant-steel works--ammoniacal liquor, benzolised and debenzolised cooling and heating; sugar industry--raw sugar solution processing; sulphuric acid manufacture--oleum cooling; petrochemical industry--condensers; reboilers; pharmaceutical industry--sterilisation and pasteurisation of fermentation media and bacteriological effluent; sewage--heat treatment of raw and treated sewage sludge; vegetable oils and margarine--high temperature processing; pulp and paper industry--liquids containing fibrous solids; brewery and distilling--kettle vapour recovery; abbatoirs--recovery of heat from process vapours. Other uses are in solvent recovery, electrolyte cooling and sludge and slurry processes. Thus it can be seen that, with the choice available from either the Paraflow or Spiral ranges, it is possible to cover a very comprehensive range of heat recovery duties, particularly in the low-grade heat region and in many instances the payback period is extremely short.