CUMULATIVE EXERGY CONSUMPTION OF NITROGEN FERTILIZER PRODUCTION: APPLICATION OF GENERALIZED NETS

摘要

The main problem of nitrogen fertilizers production processes is the significant consumption of natural non-renewable energy resources. The cumulative exergy concept is a useful means for evaluation of the overall consumption of natural resources at every step of a production process. This concept is more informative than the cumulative energy concept because the latter is based only on the First Law of thermodynamics and takes into account only combustible natural resources (fuels). On the contrary, the cumulative exergy concept is based on both First and Second Laws and therefore it is suitable for evaluation of the consumption of all kinds of natural resources, not only fuels but also non-energetic raw materials. The present work aims at studying the possibilities of applying certain contemporary methods of parallel data processing (generalized nets) to the problem of evaluation of cumulative exergy consumption in nitrogen fertilizer production processes.