Integration of thermal performance of sour cherry concentration plant with 3E procedures: energy, exergy and exergoeconomy

Concentrate industry is a major section in agro-industry dealing with massive consumption of energy. An extensive research was done in this study on the energetic, exergetic and exergoeconomic (3E) assessment of steam generation unit and evaporation line in the sour cherry concentration plant. Along with thermodynamic inefficiencies, precise costs of inefficiencies in subsystems were detected. Through thermography, likely zones of heat dissipation were extracted. Although such dissipation may not sense significant from thermodynamic scope, it was proved that it contributes significantly to costs of energy losses deduced from exergoeconomic. The results revealed that total rate of energy loss in the evaporation line is 4891.40 kW, 75.13% of which is assigned to the cooling tower. High exergy destruction rates in the steam generation unit, 17.66-fold greater than evaporation line, questions the reliability of mere exergy efficiency. Cost balances elucidated that total operational cost for evaporation line is 41778.29 USD hr−1 and 1473.39 USD hr−1 for steam generation unit. The dominant factor for such economic load on the process is exergetic destruction rate. Results strongly recommend that in order to optimize the process economically, improving the evaporation line is prioritized to steam generation unit.