Heat Exchangers in Liquid and Industrial Effluent Treatment: A Bibliometric and Thematic Review (1973-2023)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15377/2409-5826.2026.13.4Keywords:
Fouling, Bibliometrics, Heat integration, Energy efficiency, Wastewater heat recoveryAbstract
Heat exchangers connect wastewater management with energy recovery, yet earlier bibliometric descriptions of this topic have relied heavily on generic title and keyword counts. This study re-examines the literature on heat exchangers in liquid and industrial effluent treatment by combining quantitative science mapping with a content-based thematic review. Records published from 1973 to 15 May 2023 were retrieved primarily from the Web of Science Core Collection; ScienceDirect was used to verify full texts and application-level interpretation. After duplicate removal and relevance screening, 431 records were analyzed in R/RStudio with the bibliometrix workflow. Annual output, source productivity, author productivity, title-term evolution, and application themes were examined. The corpus was historically sparse but expanded sharply in the last decade: 211 records (49.0%) were published during 2014-2023, and annual production peaked at 35 records in 2021. Desalination (25 records) and Water Science and Technology (23 records) were the leading sources, while the most productive authors contributed seven records each, indicating a dispersed rather than highly concentrated research community. The content synthesis identified five modern research streams: heat-integrated water and wastewater networks; wastewater-source heat pumps and sewer heat recovery; fouling, scaling, and material reliability; low-grade-heat-driven separation and disinfection; and data-driven prediction and optimization. The principal unresolved problems are the lack of standardized real-effluent performance benchmarks, limited coupling of heat recovery with biological treatment constraints, scarce open datasets for fouling-aware digital twins, and insufficient techno-economic and life-cycle comparison of competing configurations. The study’s contribution is therefore not merely a map of publications, but a specific research agenda linking bibliometric evidence to design, operation, and scale-up decisions for recoverable wastewater heat.
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