Abstract

ACOSTA-SOLARES, Amanda; PEREZ-NAVARRO, Omar  and  CORTES-FALCON, Mariano F.. Economic optimization of the number of evaporators and design of auxiliary equipment for the enzymatic inversion of sucrose. RTQ [online]. 2023, vol.43, n.1, pp. 26-41.  Epub Jan 25, 2023. ISSN 2224-6185.

The development of the enzymatic inversion of sucrose from a thermostable biocatalyst ensures an increase in the quality and the technical-economic and environmental efficiency of the glucose production process: For the insertion of this technology, the design of the equipment that guarantees the inversion conditions and the concentration values of the hydrolyzed solution is required. The objective of the work is to design the equipment required for the preparation of the substrate, and the concentration of the invert liquor in an economical optimum number of evaporation effects. In the technological development, a dissolving tank, two heat exchangers and a multiple evaporation effect were conceived. The standardized liquid-vapor shell and tube heat exchangers were selected according to the TEMA standard, applying the traditional method of the logarithmic mean of the temperature difference. The ratio of the total costs associated with the evaporation stage to the number of evaporators was obtained. The evaluation of the developed economic optimization function indicated the installation of a double effect. The steam economy in the designed concentration system showed a value of 1,89 for an adequate steam utilization, mainly due to the previous heating of the inlet stream to this stage of the process.

Keywords : auxiliary equipment; glucose; enzymatic inversion; optimization.

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