EXERGY ANALYSIS OF THE CONVENTIONAL TEXTILE WASHING PROCESS

In this paper the efficiency of the conventional textile washing proce ss is examined. This is done by using the cumulative exergy consumptio n as developed by Szargut ef al. Exergy is the quantity of work that c an be extracted from material or energy by reversible processes. Cumul ative exergy consumption shows the exergy consumption in all productio n steps, from the extraction of natural resources to the final product . In this paper the study on minimising the cumulative exergy consumpt ion (CExC) of the washing process will be presented. In order to minim ise the CExC some experiments have been performed to quantify the exer gy consumption of the different process steps that occur during the wa shing process. These experiments show that the electrical heating proc ess consumes the most exergy. Hence, different alternatives of this pr ocess are proposed. Finally, the washing performance is related to the washing temperature and the detergent quantity by performing a number of experiments. With this relation an optimum combination of washing temperature and detergent quantity can be found for the different heat ing systems, that results in an acceptable washing performance with a minimum quantity of CExC. It is shown that replacing the conventional electrical heating system by central heating or district heating will reduce the CExC by 35 or 57%, respectively. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.