SCENARIO FOR THE SECTOR
Energy recovery from industrial processes
The high energy cost and the need to reduce CO2 emissions have highlighted the importance of optimizing the efficiency of all production processes.
Thanks to thermal recovery systems, the residual heat from many industrial processes is transformed into energy that can be put back into circulation in the same plant.
One of the many instruments to save energy at an industrial level is the recovery boiler, an industrial installation able to capture the energy that would otherwise be lost in waste products that are not completely burned.
The high energy cost and the need to reduce CO2 emissions have highlighted the importance of optimizing the efficiency of all production processes.
THE PROBLEM
The company that contacted us works in designing, constructing, and installing large-scale boilers for electricity production plants.
The request was to design a cooling system for the steam coming out of a flash tank of a recovery boiler.
This tank collects drains and vents residue from other lines, cools them, and conveys them to turbines that will generate additional energy.
The inlet steam can reach the temperature of 90º C, and the maximum temperature of the cooling water is 70º C.
The technical department of PNR Italia has developed a cooling system composed of a manifold placed inside the flash tank to which have been connected 14 RZ hydraulic atomizers.
Considering that the project’s purpose is to cool a stream of superheated steam, the smaller the droplets’ average size, the greater the surface of the heat exchange for a given volume of fluid.
For this reason, RZ atomizers have been used to produce a fine atomized hollow cone.

MANIFOLD INSTALLED IN THE FLASH TANK
SIDE AND FRONT VIEW OF THE MANIFOLD AND THE FLASH TANK
1 | STEAM OUTLET
2 | MANIFOLD
3 | STEAM INLET

SECTION AA’ FLASH TANK
INSTALLED MANIFOLD
1 | NOZZLES SPRAY
2 | MANIFOLD
ADVANTAGES
The system designed by PNR Italia uses hydraulic atomizers to optimize the gas cooling process, reaching the required temperatures of the outgoing gas with a smaller amount of water than traditional nozzles.