Integration differentiates UMIST projects
15 Jan 2000
In 1993 UMIST established a dedicated process integration department, described by its director Barry Firth as a `world first'.
Nowadays, 26 multinationals active in process engineering pay £16 500/a to participate in research projects worth a total of £1.5m. The list is growing: ICI intends to join this year. Research is undertaken by five staff and 30 students.
Process integration combines systematic and general methods to design integrated production systems, up to site scale. UMIST researchers employ the process integration tools pinch technology (pioneered here), mathematical programming and simulated an-nealing (data processing).
Recent successes include making process fuel savings of and cutting emissions both by 20 per cent (at Neste Oy), reducing fresh water use and wastewater production by 60 and 95 per cent (at Unilever and Monsanto sites) and developing a major technique for hydrogen management in an MW Kellogg-installed refinery.
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