Search

• A new software addresses the rapid analysis of black liquor evaporation plants. • An intuitive interface with equipment widgets allows different plant configurations. • EVATool includes a dashboard for easy visualization of the main results. • Software validation including different plants examples was accurate and reliable. • EVATool provides insights for operational evaporation processes decision-making. The energy recovery capability of a kraft pulping process is crucial for its feasibility, and the evaporation process of black liquor is very important for a successful energy recovery since it is the first stage of the recovery system. Despite the apparent simplicity of the process, black liquor evaporation involves multiple evaporators and complex unit operations. Therefore, analyzing and simulating different operational scenarios is essential before proposing changes. A new software tool was developed to address the limited offer of specific software for analyzing black liquor evaporation plants. It focuses on fast analysis of these plants by estimating the heat transfer coefficient, steam consumption, steam economy, black liquor mass fraction between effects, and others. The tool was developed in Python and provides an interface resembling the supervisory system used by operators and offers equipment widgets for creating plant diagrams. EVATool also presents a dashboard for easy visualization of the main results. Software validation using examples of evaporation plants has confirmed its capability to simulate plants in different modes. In an industrial setting, the dashboard enables the comparison of simulated values with project indicators unavailable through operational instrumentation. While improvements are possible, this software shows great potential for industrial implementation, contributing to operational decision-making in daily operations of the evaporation process in pulp mills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work presents a thermodynamic analysis of a cogeneration energy process with black liquor gasification obtained in pulp and paper industries, using exergy balances to identify and quantify the main irreversibilities in the process. The cogeneration process was analyzed using a commercial simulator from which it was possible to develop the exergy balance. The influence of the composition of the gases produced in the gasifier over the exergy losses in the process was evaluated. The most appropriated operating conditions in the gasifier to reduce the concentration of these components, which are responsible for the exergy losses are the low temperature (700 °C) and the low pressure (200 kPa). The analysis showed to be useful to determine the technical viability of this alternative process of energy generation using black liquor gasification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]