ENERGY CONSERVATION AND EMISSION REDUCTION THROUGH WASTE HEAT RECOVERY ON COMPRESSED AIR SYSTEMS

Compressed air is widely used in plenty of industrial sectors even though it is an energy intense and inefficient process. The most of the energy consumed by the compressor transforms to the thermal energy. Energy of compressed air which is fed to the compressed air network is too little with respect to compressor energy consumption. The thermal energy which emerges from air compression process could be recovered using proper systems for either air cooled and water cooled compressors. In this study 50kW thermal energy is recovered from an 82kWe rated power compressor. Investigated compressor is a single stage screw compressor and operating 6,300 hours/year. Recovered heat energy is used to heat 0.66 kg/s water from 45 to 63 °C. With this application 329,313 kWh/year thermal energy is conserved. The conserved energy is equivalent to 31,214 Nm3/year natural gas and 10,945 USD/year. The thermal energy conservation is followed by 66,784 kg CO2/year emission reduction.