BatchHeat - software for pinch analysis for batch processes

Pinch Analysis extensively used in continuous process was applied in this work to a discontinuous process. The intermittent nature of batch processes imposes a three-dimensional data treatment in terms of enthalpy, temperature and time, which brings up high complexity, making manual calculation very difficult and extensive. Therefore the main purpose of this work was to develop a software package, BatchHeat, incorporating Pinch Analysis and enabling the automatic application of this methodology to a discontinuous problem. The BatchHeat, may be used as a first tool during the course of a Process Integration study. The results obtained highlight the energy inefficiencies in the process and therefore enable to set the scope for possible heat recovery, through direct heat exchange or storage.