Study on Energy Conservation of Vinyl Acetate Device by Optimization

To meet the energy consumption target of "Made in China 2025" in 2020, the heat exchanger network of the existing vinyl acetate production plant was optimized using pinch technology by Aspen Plus software. The energy consumption of the plant was analyzed to propose energy-saving measures. By comparing the simulation results with the actual production data, it can be seen that the heat transfer model can reflect the energy consumption of the device, and the simulation results can guide the further energy saving research of the device. The optimization results show that the minimum heat transfer temperature difference of the device is set at 12℃. The minimum heat utility and cold utility are determined to be 548 MW and 585 MW by using the temperature-enthalpy combination curve. After optimization, the energy saving potential of the cold and hot utilities is 184.5 MW and 149.8 MW, respectively. The heat transfer matching that does not conform to the pinch rule in the heat exchange network is reformed to improve the energy recovery rate. A new heat exchange is needed in the reformed scheme. The energy consumption of the heat project and the cold utility project is reduced by 31.5% and 27.3%, respectively. Compared with the original industrial plant, the decrease in the energy consumption is 29.5%, reaching the decrease of energy consumption in 2020. The simulation technology is also applicable to an optimal design of heat exchanger networks for other production devices.