Mitigating Condensate Recovery Problem for Boiler Feed Water in Wonji/ Shoa Sugar Factory
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Date
2021-03
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Today the competitiveness of sugar industry is dependent on the efficiency of the factory. The
major contributor for the efficiency is the energy performance of the plant as sugar factory is one
of intensive energy demanding manufacturing sector. Usually clarifications, evaporation, pan
Boiling, and crystallization sections of sugar factory use most of thermal energy of the steam to
concentrate and crystallize. In addition to run the factory without interruption continuous and
sufficient supply of feed water is important. However, boilers of most sugar factories in Ethiopia
are unable to supply enough steam for their respective factory operation purposes besides their
electric power generation are not even self-sufficient rather they need external power supply to
run the factory like Wonji shoa Sugar factory due to different reasons; one of the reasons is
shortage of condensate to the Boiler as feed water. This is mainly known when exhaust steam
supplied to first effect evaporator and clear juice heater is recovered only 87.5 % of it. 6.1 t/h or
146.4 tons per day hot Condensate is lost. That is 146.4 tons or 149,082 liters of treated heated
water is required per day.
Therefore, thermal energy performance of the factory can be improved by increasing the amount
of condensate recovered and this is accomplished by avoiding intermittent crushing, reducing
down times, crushing different cane varieties together, regular inspection and maintenance of
leakages on steam-condensate lines and mainly manage exhaust steam temperature delivered to
first effect evaporator and clear juice heater by controlling the amount of de-superheating water.
Therefore, Boiler stoppage because of the drop of over flow level of hot well tank as the result of
low condensate recovery will be reduced to zero. Consequently, the performance of the Boiler
steam generation will be improved by 5%, and the loss of condensate will be minimized to zero
so that avoiding downtime will help the factory to save about 7,400,000 birr per day and
minimizing condensate loss helps the factory to save 4,621,543.4 birr per day. Totally the factory
can save 12,021,543.4 birr per day.
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Keywords
Condensate, Boiler, steam trap, exhaust steam, hot well tank, make up water, evaporator, clear juice heater