Recirculación de Condensados para Aumentar la Eficiencia Energética de la Caldera y Disminuir el Consumo de Agua en la Planta Parmalat de Chía (Cundinamarca)

Abstract

Parmalat Colombia Ltda. of the Lactalis group is one of the most important companies in the dairy industry in the food sector. One of its main plants is located in the municipality of Chía, Cundinamarca, where different production processes are carried out that are characterized by a high demand in water and gas consumption. In the specific case of the boiler equipment, it is in charge of distributing steam to the different production areas of the plant. Taking into account the complexity of the processes together with the company's daily production volume, it is estimated that 6.9 m3 of water were consumed for each ton produced, which generated an average consumption of 594.4 m3 of water and 7,255 m3 of gas per day for the first half of the year 2023. Although the reduction of these volumes is a challenging task, this problem can be minimized by using the condensates by recirculating them to the boiler, since in this case they are not used after the steam distribution is completed.

To evaluate the feasibility of implementing this system in the plant, 3 phases were carried out where the critical points of the operation were identified and the distribution line of boiler 2 was defined for the implementation of the possible system. A sampling and evaluation of the physicochemical parameters of the boiler feed water and condensate outlet was carried out; and finally an energy efficiency system was proposed by incorporating a condensate recirculation process from which it was obtained as a result that by implementing this type of system the boiler efficiency can be increased up to 10.71% generating savings in gas consumption of up to 32.606,002 $ per month.