“Systemic” thinking and heat and material balances for optimizing a lime plant

1 Introduction

Great prominence nowadays attaches to the optimisation of technical processes in energy-intensive industries, such as the lime industry, for example. One immediate aim is that of cutting the consumption of energy, and thus also operating costs. The attainment of this target also achieves emissions reductions. This work is generally difficult for the company involved, since such processes are complex, and may incorporate additional process loops. Transparent depiction of the processes is necessary for optimisation, in order that corresponding provisions for process optimisation...