Advances in Energy Research
Volume 7, Number 2, 2020, pages 147-166
DOI: 10.12989/eri.2020.7.2.147
Low-grade waste heat recovery and repurposing to reduce the load on cooling towers
Shannon H. McLean, Jeff Chenier, Sari Muinonen, Corey A. Laamanen and John A. Scott
Abstract
Industrial cooling towers are often ageing infrastructure that is expensive to maintain and operate. A novel approach is introduced in which a heat pump circuit is incorporated to reduce the load upon the towers by extracting low-grade energy from the stream sent to the towers and repurposing in on-site processing operations. To demonstrate the concept, a model was constructed, which uses industrial data on cooling towers linked to a smelter
Key Words
low-grade heat recovery; heat pumps; cooling towers; energy repurposing; mineral processing; environmental sustainability
Address
Shannon H. McLean, Corey A. Laamanen and John A. Scott: School of Engineering, Laurentian University, 935 Ramsey Lake Road, Sudbury, ON, Canada
Jeff Chenier and Sari Muinonen: Sudbury Integrated Nickel Operations (a Glencore Company), Sudbury, ON, Canada