Energy and water integration for the design of sustainable total textile waste refinery

This paper presents a process design method using combined energy and water integration for a complete textile waste refinery process. The proposed method consists of a superstructure model taking into account balanced energy and water minimization targets and produces energy and water networks of maximum efficiency. It produces significant results both for independent and combined water and energy integration; Savings up to 71% for heating and 86% for cooling can be achieved by standalone energy integration and savings up to 38% for water consumption by applying independent water integration. On the other hand, combined energy and water integration can lead to 74.5% energy and 36% water savings, thus an increase of 3.5% in energy savings at the expense of just 2% reduction in water savings.