WADO™: water design optimization—methodology and software for the synthesis of process water systems

Abstract In this paper, an integrated synthesis strategy for the design of industrial process water systems is presented. The aim is to determine the cost optimal water network considering multiple contaminants and various possibilities of water reuse and regeneration. The approach is based on heuristic rules that assist the formulation of the real world design problem in such a way that a mixed integer nonlinear programming problem can be derived. Mathematical optimization methods are used to generate the cost optimal solution for this problem. Emphasis is placed on the treatment system including the selection of reasonable treatment operations for regeneration purposes and on the construction of a reasonable superstructure for the final optimization task.