Solar Heat Integration in Rotational Molding Process: Case Study
Abstract
Rotational molding process (RMP) is conventionally used to manufacture plastic products. This process is based on the use of considerable amounts of heat in order to reach the required operating temperature (300°C) for plastics melting. As fossil fuels are the primary source of the required heat in industrial processes, RMP suffers from their drawbacks (e.g. CO2 emissions, and instable cost of the used fossil fuels). One promising way to reduce these negative impacts is the use of solar thermal technologies as source of energy. Thus, the main objective of this paper is to study the potentiality of the integration of solar heat into Rotational Molding process, as well as its environmental and economic benefits. For this purpose, a real case study of a plant located in Casablanca city in Morocco was simulated in EBSILON® Professional software. The obtained numerical simulation results show that up to 26% of cost-effective solar share could be achieved with a reasonable payback time (around 6 years).