Tag: process

Sankey Diagrams from Cement Production

I would love to share with you two Sankey diagrams from cement production, but better do respect “Crown Copyright”. These two are featured in Gao, Tianming: Analysis of material flow and consumption in cement production process. Journal of Cleaner Production. DOI 10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.08.054 as figures 7 and 9 on pages 560 and 561. One is for the raw roller mill system, the other from the clinker process. Both Sankey diagrams are for mass flows in the process.

To see the diagrams please go to article on Researchgate.

In lieu of the copyrighted material, please enjoy this schematic of a rotary cement kiln.

Non Process Energy Flow Diagrams

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy publishes Sankey diagrams on non process energy on this webiste.

What is non-process energy you might ask. According to DOE, non process energy is “energy used for purposes other than converting raw material into manufactured product. MECS-specified categories of nonprocess energy include facility HVAC, facility lighting, onsite transportation, other facility support (e.g., cooking, water heating), and other nonprocess use.”

You can access the energy flow Sankey diagram for the full U.S. manufacturing sector. Data is from 2010 and flows are in TBtu (Trillion British Thermal Units) per year.

Detailed diagrams on on-site generation, process energy and non-process energy (the three ‘transforming nodes’ in the middle of the full sector) are also presented.

Grey and black arrows show losses. Good work from the Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy.

Steam generator 3-in-1 Sankey diagram

I liked the below 3-in-1 Sankey diagram from the e!Sankey website. Actually three different Sankey diagrams of the a steam generation process.

The first is a quantitative (mass) view of the process where water, steam, gaseous emissions are shown in kilograms:

Using the same basic structure, the second shows the energy content within the flows. Values are in MJ. Temperature is shown as additional information with a lighter color.

And finally the temperature only Sankey diagram of the steam generation process. Here the width of the arrows shows the temperature of the steam or gas.

In the background is a transparent technical process diagram of the steam process. Thanks to Michael for providing these Sankey diagrams.

Re-Esterification of Rapeseed Oil

An article on the Polish website ekoenergia.pl titled ‘Rozwój biopaliw – efektywniejsze rolnictwo cz.2’ by Prof. Dr. Włodzimierz Kotowski shows the following Sankey diagram.

The process system shown is a re-esterification of rapeseed oil with methanol. Flows are mass flows shown in kilograms. Methanol is shown in blue. It is re-used and fed back into the process.

Anyone who speaks Polish who can explain further?

Casual Friday Sankey Post: Wykres Sankeya

Just before I kick off for a short weekend trip, here is another Sankey for you to enjoy. It is from the Polish language Wikipedia and shows production of KClO3.

This is more of a schematic flow diagram, as it doesn’t show any quantities. The blue boxes are processing steps. Two nice recycling loops in there from the crystalization step back to the electrolysis and from the other crystalization step back to the refining. ‘Szlam’ seems to be sludge. The individual Sankey arrows don’t show an arrow head, but little gray arrows indicate the flow direction from top to bottom.

The whole Sankey just looks kind of odd, because the main product flow is not aligned vertically. But then again, that’s up to the designer. After all, it is a fine sample of a process flow Sankey diagram.