Recent advances on heat, chemical and process integration, multiobjective and structural optimisation

This editorial is introducing and providing an overview of a special issue dedicated to the 7th conference Process Integration, Modelling and Optimisation for Energy Saving and Pollution Reduction—PRES 2004. It contains six selected papers covering various fields of applied thermal engineering focusing on recent development of various different features of heat, chemical and process integration in various applications ranging from natural gas and CO2 capture, through heat-integrated distillation columns, multipurpose batch plants to steel production. Another four selected papers are presenting novel approaches multiobjective and structural optimisation of pulp and paper industry, distributed and district heating, thermal sludge processing and fuel cells applications.