Case studies

Several case studies are used to elucidate the applicability of the proposed methodology. The first case study is a two-contaminant problem, with four sources and four sinks available based on Teles et al. [32]. Different scenarios are explored, which includes changing the sequence of the sources and the existence of a sink that does not require water (above the Pinch Region). The second case study involves a three-contaminant problem in a pulp and paper mill from Lovelady et al. [33] – see Appendix B. The third case involves a larger case study in an India starch industry, with data retrieved from Dakwala et al. [34] – see Appendix C.
Case study 1: Two-contaminant problem
This case study is an illustrative example with two contaminants from Teles et al. (2008). The data is manipulated to explore different scenarios that involve changing the concentration or flowrate of sources.
Scenario 1: Complete conflicting sources
The first scenario explores a case with complete conflicting sources sequence, i.e. the source prioritisation for contaminant ’A’ is completely opposite with contaminant ’B’. The data is presented in Table 2: