Investigating the Application of Heat Pump in Isomerization Unit to Decrease the Energy Consumption by Means of Pinch Technology

Pinch Technology is one of the effective and practical methods for energy consumption economization. In this research, Pinch Technology has been used for energy consumption optimization in the isomerization unit. As a result, heat pumps have been used for energy consumption optimization in this unit in which the amount of energy consumption in heating and cooling utilities has decreased from 128.61 GJ/h and 143.9 GJ/h to 127.8 GJ/h and 152.0 GJ/h, respectively. This energy-saving leads to a decrease in the amount of energy consumption and an increase in the efficiency of the unit. Heat pumps have been additionally applied to study the heat exchangers with the highest amount of cross-pinchheat transfer. This study resulted in a significant decrease in the cross-pinch heat transfer, from 22.47 GJ/h to 19.90 GJ/h (11.3% decline).