Exergy Based Sustainability Analysis of Steam Generation and Utilization in Nigerian Pharmaceutical Industries

Abstract

Exergy based sustainability analysis of steam generation and utilization in Nigerian pharmaceutical industries has been presented. Two pharmaceutical plants were considered which include JUHEL and DANA plants located in Awka, Anambra state and Minna, Niger state, respectively. The objective of the study is to perform a comprehensive energy and exergy analyses of steam boilers for JUHEL and DANA pharmaceutical industries and determine the utilization efficiency and sustainability index of the process heat at different operating conditions. The exergy of the component system was evaluated and the analysis done using an Engineering equation software (EES). The results obtained show that the fuel utilization efficiency varies from 30.4 to 67.2 % for energy efficiency and 17.5 to 55.6 % for exergy efficiency for JUHEL plant. Similarly, the FUE for DANA plant vary from 22.4 to 68.9 % for energy efficiency and 16.6 to 54.9 % for exergy efficiency. The environmental effect factor (EEF) showed increasing trend for all increased values of ambient temperature. The environmental effect factor increased with increased air flow rate (AFR) for both plant. The EEF for both plants was calculated at 4.8 for JUHEL and 5.04 for DANA plants. Similarly, the sustainability index was found at 0.209 and 0.197 for JUHEL and DANA plants respectively.  Waste exergy ratio was recorded at 0.84 for JUHEL and 0.87 for DANA plant. However, JUHEL plant recorded slight improved values of (WER) of 0.02 % at lower AFR. The study suggests a retrofitting of the existing pharmaceutical plants and a time-series analysis will be necessary to show how the plant’s irreversibilities change with time for proper optimization.

Keywords: Energy, Exergy, Sustainability Index.