The sugar production industry is one of the most energy-intensive agro-industrial sectors, characterized by substantial energy inputs and large-scale operations. Given sustainability requirements, environmental concerns, and limited fossil fuel reserves, detailed energy assessment of sugar production processes is essential. This study evaluated vapor recovery and vapor condensation units of Urmia Sugar Plant through thermodynamic analyses in a real sugary production process. Energy losses and inefficiencies were determined using energy and exergy methods. Results demonstrated that the vapor condensation unit exhibits significantly weaker thermodynamic performance than the vapor recovery unit. The condensation unit showed 6.90 times higher exergy destruction rate and 47.79 times greater improvement potential, while the recovery unit exhibited 7.11 times higher sustainability index and 238.69 times greater exergy efficiency. Within the condensation unit, the cooling tower demonstrated the poorest performance, accounting for 33.52% of total exergy destruction (1073.91 kW), with 2.93% exergy efficiency, 1.03 sustainability index, and 1042.48 kW improvement potential. To reduce exergy destruction, we recommend regenerating vapor from the final evaporation effect and crystallization process using mechanical and thermal compression methods, thereby decreasing vapor input to the condensation unit and enabling energy reuse for syrup heating.
Samadzadeh et al. (Fri,) studied this question.