{"id":188598,"date":"2024-11-01T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-01T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/c2w-memo.net\/factory-seeks-heat\/"},"modified":"2024-11-01T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-11-01T08:00:00","slug":"factory-seeks-heat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/c2w-memo.net\/en\/factory-seeks-heat\/","title":{"rendered":"Factory seeks heat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Without (a fair amount of) heat, you won’t get far in the chemical industry. Now that factories must say goodbye to natural gas as a heat source, there is intensive work underway on new heat pumps capable of delivering the required high temperatures. But there are still quite a few obstacles to overcome.<\/strong><\/div>\r\n

‘The goal of the Dutch industry is to be completely sustainable by 2050’, says John Nijenhuis, senior technology manager at TU Delft. ‘Things are moving in the right direction on many fronts, but heat is still a significant obstacle.’ In chemical plants, managing heat is of essential importance. You need to generate heat that drives reactions, or alternatively reuse heat to prevent waste.<\/p>\n

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‘You can’t simply roll out a standard system for industrial processes’<\/p>\n

Simon Spoelstra<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

These developments are progressing rapidly, but in the meantime many factories still depend on natural gas for heat production. Making strides towards sustainability in that area will require new techniques. The main problem here is the sheer diversity of factories and processes, says senior project manager Simon Spoelstra of TNO: ‘For homes, you can apply a few standard heating systems universally. Industrial processes are all different, so you can’t simply roll out a standard system there.’<\/p>\n\n

Working fluid<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the most frequently cited options is a high-temperature heat pump. ‘We currently have fairly standard heat pumps that can heat up to ninety degrees’, says Spoelstra. ‘But for industrial processes we need to push the temperature even higher.’ The principle of a high-temperature heat pump is not fundamentally different from a heat pump that heats a home. In both cases, a so-called working fluid is used that evaporates even at low temperatures. In a home, the outside air provides the heat for evaporation; in industry, this is waste heat from the process. The working fluid evaporates and the vapour is pressurised in a compressor, causing the temperature to rise. In a condenser, the gas releases the heat back to the heat distribution system, and it condenses back into a liquid.<\/p>\n

For industrial heat pumps, however, the processes become more complex when aiming for higher temperatures. The difference lies primarily in the working fluid and the scale of the system, explains Spoelstra: ‘The working fluid must be matched to the temperature conditions of the application. The performance of the heat pump depends mainly on the temperature difference between the heat source and the heat required. The more heat that enters the evaporator, the more heat you can ultimately deliver.’<\/p>\n

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‘A process like Haber-Bosch is unlikely to work at 200 degrees any time soon’<\/p>\n

John Nijenhuis<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The challenge, then, is to find a working fluid or a mixture of working fluids that best suits the application. Spoelstra: ‘In the past we used chlorofluorocarbon compounds and their successors, but many of these substances will likely be banned before long. We therefore use hydrocarbons such as butane and pentane.’ With these, temperatures of 150 \u00b0C have already been achieved, though there are drawbacks. ‘These gases are of course extremely flammable, so you need to be absolutely certain that your system is made safe.’<\/p>\n

\n

\"Figure-3\"<\/p>\n

Image: Simon Spoelstra<\/cite><\/p><\/div><\/div>\n

Heatflex<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nijenhuis and his colleagues are also working on technologies for industrial heat management. They do so through the Heatflex programme, a collaboration between various universities, companies and knowledge institutions. ‘We want to find out how we can heat factories as efficiently as possible without natural gas’, says Nijenhuis. ‘To that end, we work together with energy companies such as Eneco, companies that manufacture heat pumps and compressors, and a great many factories that are willing to test new types of heat pumps and other techniques in practice.’<\/p>\n

In addition to new working fluids, they are also looking, for instance, at developing more efficient compressors for industrial heat pumps, says Rene Pecnik, professor of energy technology at TU Delft: ‘For example, compressors that use steam and might thereby achieve temperatures of up to 250 degrees.’ The size of the heat pump is also a point of focus, says his colleague Jurriaan Peeters, associate professor of energy technology. ‘We need to look at more compact systems that can be easily accommodated within a factory.’<\/p>\n

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‘We need to look at more compact systems that can be easily accommodated within a factory’<\/p>\n

Jurriaan Peeters<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Help occasionally comes from unexpected quarters. They found, for instance, a company that manufactures air conditioning systems for aircraft and is able to build highly efficient, compact compressors for that purpose. Peeters: ‘This company has now been paired with a company that produces packaging material using a drying process requiring a great deal of heat. They are now working together to build a small, efficient heat pump that can also be integrated into production processes.’ It would also help if such systems were incorporated into factory design from the outset. Pecnik: ‘But because factories have such long lifespans, we also need to find more flexible solutions in the interim.’<\/p>\n

Costly<\/strong><\/p>\n

A serious obstacle with this kind of project is the substantial investment required. ‘A great deal is custom-built, and that makes it expensive’, says Spoelstra. And there is another complicating factor: at 200 \u00b0C, you are still far short of the temperatures many processes require. ‘We need to go higher still, and a great deal of further development is needed for that’, says Pecnik. ‘New fluids and compressors, but perhaps also entirely new types of heat pumps such as thermoacoustic systems.’ The researchers do, however, anticipate that process temperatures will come down. ‘From a sustainability perspective, many factories are also exploring whether they can operate at lower temperatures \u2014 that would dovetail rather nicely.’<\/p>\n

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‘Perhaps we need to look at new types of heat pumps such as thermoacoustic systems’<\/p>\n

Ren\u00e9 Pecnik<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Naturally, that is not always possible. ‘A process like Haber-Bosch is unlikely to work at two hundred degrees any time soon’, says Nijenhuis. That is why the researchers are also looking at directly heating reactors electrically, rather like an electric hob. ‘This is feasible, but it consumes a great deal of additional electricity’, says Spoelstra. That balance presents a puzzle in any case. ‘At present, twenty per cent of a factory’s energy demand is electricity; if that proportion rises, the electricity grid will need to be able to cope.’ Moreover, there is not yet a continuous supply of sustainable electricity. For this reason, the Heatflex researchers are also exploring options for storing heat in order to absorb fluctuations. Solutions for this already exist in principle, but scaling up is needed, says Peeters: ‘Heat can be stored, for example, in phase-change materials such as molten salts, or in reactive materials.’<\/p>\n

There is no shortage of ideas and options, then; according to Nijenhuis, it is now primarily a matter of determining what actually works. ‘With many ideas, we still don’t know how they work, or only partially. So we still have a great deal to learn.’ Time is beginning to press somewhat, as the researchers aim to have concrete results by 2035. ‘By then we want to have all the pilots virtually completed and be able to provide factories with a clear overview of what works, so that they can begin implementation.’<\/p>\n

Spoelstra observes that the shift is accelerating: ‘More and more people are working on this problem. Not only in research, but also in areas such as standardising the production of heat pumps. That too is enormously helpful in making progress. And we have no choice but to push forward, if we want a new industry by 2050.’<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Without (a fair amount of) heat, you won’t get far in the chemical industry. Now that factories must say goodbye to natural gas as a heat source, there is intensive work underway on new heat pumps capable of delivering the required high temperatures. But there are still quite a few obstacles to overcome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":235,"featured_media":187115,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[449,498,551,549,460,502],"class_list":["post-188598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry-start-ups","tag-industry","tag-process-technology","tag-research","tag-sustainability-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c2w-memo.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c2w-memo.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c2w-memo.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c2w-memo.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/235"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c2w-memo.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/c2w-memo.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c2w-memo.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c2w-memo.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c2w-memo.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c2w-memo.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}