Hello, I am designing a plant which uses steam both as a reactant and a utility. I know that packaged boilers are small scale and can be used solely for supplying steam to my reactor. I'm curious as to whether I can use steam from the steam utility system instead and adjust the amount of makeup based on my reaction needs. I feel that this would be cheaper even if the utility boiler is larger.
Another question: I have five process streams that require heating with a furnace. It should be cheaper to use one furnace to heat all five streams, but the design would be more complicated and compact. In this case, would it be better to use more than one unit?