Leeps for Cluster Rule Compliance Plus, 1999 Environmental Conference Proceedings

Charles Wall

Southern Company

James Wildermuth

Ahlstrom Recovery Inc.

Theodora Retsina

American Process Inc.

An innovative solution for segregation and treatment of foul condensate as required by the Cluster Rules is presented herein. This process solution uses proven technology integrated in such a way that it provides additional evaporation, black liquor condensate segregation and foul condensate stripping. This is a very low risk and economical solution for incremental evaporation capacity increase, condensate segregation and stripping. The energy input is electrical in the form of vapor compression, making it an attractive solution for steam-limited sites. The system is generally most attractive for evaporation-limited mills and mills without condensate segregation. The operating costs of this arrangement are up to 60% less than traditional solutions that achieve the same result. The compact and stand-alone nature of the installation allows construction and start-up without interference with existing operations or downtime on the existing train. The system can be physically located away from the main evaporators. Furthermore, the arrangement makes uptime compliance much easier to achieve than arrangements where the stripper is integrated with existing evaporator bodies. This solution exhibits the value of the process integration approach to design challenges. In this way, an imposed expenditure can be turned into an opportunity for overall mill improvement and debottlenecking.