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Chemical Engineering vocabulary · Process Fundamentals and Balances

Energy balance

Meaning in chemical engineering, with examples

nounCore term

In chemical engineering, energy balance means: A calculation that tracks all the energy entering and leaving a system as heat, work and the enthalpy of the streams, so that heating and cooling needs can be found.

In Turkish: enerji denkliği, enerji dengesi

How it is used

Done right after the mass balance in design and in troubleshooting. Engineers use it to size heat exchangers, calculate steam or cooling water demand and check reactor heat removal. Usually written as 'heat and mass balance' or 'H&MB' in project documents.

Example sentences

  1. The energy balance shows that the reactor needs about 350 kW of cooling at full load.

  2. The feed is colder than we assumed, so please update the energy balance before the vendor sizes the reboiler.

Common collocations

  • heat and mass balance
  • overall energy balance
  • perform an energy balance
  • energy balance on the reactor
  • mass balanceA calculation based on the rule that mass is not created or destroyed: everything that goes into a system must come out, react or build up inside it.
  • enthalpyA measure of the heat content of a substance, used to calculate how much energy is needed to heat, cool, vaporize or react it at constant pressure. Usually given in kJ/kg or kJ/mol.
  • heat dutyThe amount of heat that a heat exchanger, reboiler, condenser or furnace must transfer per unit time, usually given in kW or MW.
  • heat exchangerA piece of equipment that moves heat from one fluid to another without letting them mix, for example from hot oil to cold water through the walls of tubes or plates.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Process Fundamentals and Balances

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