Energy Integration For Solvent Recovery Department Of Penicillin Production

Penicillin, the earliest of antibiotics, is widely used as antibacterial drugs. In our country, penicillin production mainly includes two procedures, i.e. biological fermentation, purification process. And the solvent extraction method is the most common purification methods. Solvent recovery processes is necessary, for the dosage of solvent stays large in the large-scale plants. Recovering solvent in time is beneficial for the recycling of raw material, decreasing costs and reducing environmental pollution. There exists large energy consumption in some cases, enhancing the operating costs of the distillation. Therefore, it is expected to optimize energy structure of solvent recovery system by energy integration.We study on the basis of a solvent recovery process of penicillin production line. After the daily production data collection and simulation data extraction, three sets of independent process modeling are accomplished using Aspen plus. The analyses of three sets of solvent recovery processes and the entire section were conducted, energy bottlenecks were determined. And then improvement measures are proposed, after pointing out the unreasonable energy-using equipment and heat transmission across the pinch.Via modified simulation, two energy-saving retrofit schemes were presented. The independent modifications optimized these processes separately and the retrofits saved 32% of hot utility, saving 29% cold public process, that was expected to reduce RMB 1.96 million/a year of operating cost. In view of the energy bottleneck in different processes, integrated renovation strengthened the heat exchange among the processes to enhanced energy recovery and integration for the section. The retrofit saved 36% of hot utility to retrofit scheme, cold public saving 92%, that was expected to reduce RMB 3.88 million/a year of operating cost.Through analysis of energy consumption in the solvent recovery section, the feasible optimization measures were put forward, achieving the goal of energy conservation and emissions reduction with minimum engineering modification.