An Overview on Different Water Pinch Methods for Industrial Water and Wastewater Minimization

In this paper, six methods of water pinch analysis are introduced to illustrate the advantages and disadvantages of each method. Although, these methods can be used in some industries which generate single contaminant during their processes, otherwise all contaminants can be considered as a single contaminant, but actually it is impossible. On the case of multiple contaminants, we can apply pinch analysis by using mathematical programming methods. While graphical methods are unusable in the most situations, some researchers such as Wang and Smith, Gomez and James G. Mann, have developed their methods to cover the multiple contaminant problems. However, more applicable results may be achieved by using mathematical methods as discussed in relation to the Tan and Yee methods. Among the methods considered, Gomes’ mass transferring network is the most satisfactory for use in most industries. This method can be used for both single and multiple contaminant problems.