Pump

Dr. Senthilmurugan Department of Chemical Engineering, IIT Guwahati

Overview of Process Control

For chemical industry
Objectives
Overview of Process Control – Chemical Industry

 The objective of this chapter is:

 To define what we mean by chemical process control

 To describe the needs and the incentives for

controlling a chemical process

 To analyze the characteristics of a control system and

to formulate the problems that must be solved during
its design

 To achieve the foregoing objectives, we will use a

series of examples taken from the chemical industry
and need of process control

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Chemical plant
Its major components

Some Continuous process

Fig source@ Process dynamics and control book by Dale Seborg,Thomas F. Edgar ,
6/30/20 | Slide 3 Francis Doyle and Duncan A. Mellichamp
Chemical plant
Its major components
Some non-continuous process

Fig source@ Process dynamics and control book by Dale Seborg,Thomas F. Edgar ,
6/30/20 | Slide 4 Francis Doyle and Duncan A. Mellichamp
Integrated Chemical Plant
Example: Reverse osmosis based desalination plant

Operating List of equipment

conditions
• RO membrane
• Pump
• Control valves
Feed pressure Product flow

PIC
FIC

HC

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Integrated Chemical Plant
E.g. Advanced Reverse osmosis based desalination plant
Membrane
fouling
Target product
Fouling Performance condition
flow
Optimizer parameter Cleaning
HP pump flow Monitor schedule
range
Range of
recovery
Flow range for Operating
Pelton wheel conditions
Feed pressure
Max and min
flow and
pressure to PIC
RO rack

F
Recovery

Recovery
rate
Motor
FIC

Pelton
wheel

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Reject
Integrated Chemical Plant
E.g. Advanced Reverse osmosis based desalination plant
Solution Applicable for system with VFD for HP pump, Feed supply pump, ERD pump
Fouling Performance
Optimizer parameter
Monitor

Feed PT FIT CM
PID Pressure

Product
RO Membrane Model water
VFD PT FIT

DP PT – Pressure transmitter
LP out FIT – Flow Indicating
PID Feed Pressure transmitter
HP pump VFD flow CM – Conductivity meter
HP in DP – Differential pressure
HP VFD – Variable frequency
out drive
Booster PID
FCV – Flow control valve
pump Energy Recovery
Treated System
feed FCV PT
LP in LP out Brine
ERD pump reject
(optional) Valve
Feed
Supply
pump

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Integrated Chemical Plant
E.g. Lime kiln to produce CaO solids from CaCO3 Liquor
The basic reaction in a rotary lime kiln is
CaCO3 + energy = CaO + CO2
(100) (56) (44)

List of equipment
• Storage tank
• Mud filter
• Dryer
• Cooler
• Kiln (Reactor)
• Heat exchanger
• Electro static precipitator (ESP)
• Cyclone
• Pump
• Valves

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Integrated Chemical Plant
E.g. Lime kiln to produce CaO solids from CaCO3 Liquor

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The control of chemical process
Incentives for Chemical Process Control

 Safe operation of chemical plant

 Operating pressure, flow, temperature and concentration of chemical should be within
desired limit
 Production specification
 Achieve desired quality and Quantity

 Environmental regulations
 Maintain specification of effluent (temperatures, concentrations of chemicals, and flow
rates of the effluents from a plant be within certain limits when such regulations exist
 E.g. The amounts of SO2 that a plant can eject to the atmosphere, and on the quality

of water returned to a river or a lake.

 Operational constraints:
 Avoid pump dry run, hot water tank level should be maintained at minimum level etc.

 Economics
 Ensure profitability of chemical plant by optimizing the plant operation by satisfying
above mentioned requirements

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Chemical process control system
Objective

 There are three general classes of needs that a control system is called on to
satisfy:
 Suppressing the influence of external disturbances
 Uncontrolled variable that affects the process can be suppressed by using
appropriate controller
 Ensuring the stability of a chemical process
 Operation of unstable system at steady state in presence of external
disturbances
 Optimizing the performance of a chemical process
 Maximization of profit by moving plant operation near to optimal point
 This is accomplished through a rational arrangement of equipment (measuring
devices, valves, controllers, computers) and human intervention (plant designers,
plant operators), which together constitute the control system

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Suppress the Influence of External Disturbances

Figure stirred tank heater

 External disturbances
 Usually out of the reach of the External disturbances
human operator Ti, Fi
 E.g. surrounding temperature,
humidity, pressure
 Consider the stirred tank heater system Feedback temperature
shown in Figure control for a tank heater
 Objective is
 To keep the effluent temperature T
at a desired value Ts
 To keep the height of the liquid in
the tank h at a desired value hs
 we can use a different control
arrangement to maintain both Ts and hs

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Chemical process control system
Example: Alternative liquid-level control schemes.

Level control by manipulating inlet flowrate Level control by manipulating outlet flowrate

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Feedforward temperature control for stirred tank
heater

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Ensure the Stability of a Process
For stable system Response of a stable system

 External intervention is not required for

stabilization of stable or self-regulating
process
 It is clear that no control mechanism is
needed to force x to return to its initial
value
 However controller can speedup the
stabilization process
 Example: Tank level control problem

Unit pulse Unit impulse

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Ensure the Stability of a Process
For unstable system Alternative responses of unstable systems

 Without external intervention the

unstable process does not return to its
initial value after it is disturbed by
external influences
 In figure, curves A, B, C are called
unstable processes and require external
control for the stabilization of their
behavior.
 Example (i) explosion of a hydrocarbon CSTR with cooling jacket.
fuel with air is such an unstable system.
(ii) Riding a bicycle is an attempt to
stabilize an unstable system and we
attain that by pedaling, steering, and
leaning our body right or left (iii)
Controlling the Operation of an Unstable
Reactor

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Ensure the Stability of a Process
CSTR with cooling jacket. CSTR with cooling jacket.

 Consider a continuous stirred tank

reactor (CSTR) in which an irreversible
exothermic reaction A  B takes place
 For stable operation of CSTR
 Amount of heat released by the
The three steady states of a CSTR
exothermic reaction = heat removed
by the coolant the amount of heat
 Then the intersection of curves A released by the
exothermic
and B will be the steady state reaction

operating point for CSTR (i.e. PI, P2, heat removal

capacity by the
and P3) coolant

 Steady states P1and P3 are called

stable point, whereas P2 is unstable
point

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Ensure the Stability of a Process
CSTR with cooling jacket.
The three steady states of a CSTR The three steady states of a CSTR

the amount of the amount of

heat released by heat released by
the exothermic the exothermic
reaction reaction
heat removal heat removal
capacity by the capacity by the
coolant coolant

Amount of heat released by the exothermic reaction > Amount of heat released by the exothermic reaction <
heat removed by the coolant heat removed by the coolant

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Ensure the Stability of a Process
CSTR with cooling jacket
The three steady states of a CSTR The three steady states of a CSTR

the amount of the amount of

heat released by heat released by
the exothermic the exothermic
reaction reaction
heat removal heat removal
capacity by the capacity by the
coolant coolant

Amount of heat released by the exothermic reaction > Amount of heat released by the exothermic reaction <
heat removed by the coolant heat removed by the coolant

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Ensure the Stability of a Process
CSTR with cooling jacket

 Point P3 may be more appropriate than

other two stable point for following reason
 The low-temperature steady and P 1

may cause very low yields because

of low reactor operating temperature
 Similarly high temperature also may
cause unsafe conditions for reactor
operation, destroying the catalyst
and degrading the product B quality
and so on
 In, such cases we need a controller that
will ensure the stability of the reactor
operation at middle point.
 For example by controlling either reactor
feed flow rate and reactant concentration
one can maintain the reactor operation P2

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Optimize the Performance of a Chemical Process
Before control

 Maximization of plant profit by

 Increased product throughput

 Increased yield of higher valued

products
 Decreased energy consumption After control
 Decreased pollution
 Decreased off-spec product
 Increased Safety
Operating
 Extended life of equipment
variable
 Improved Operability

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Optimizing the Performance of a Batch Reactor

peristatic
Feed /
 Consider a batch fermentation reactor Substrate
pump Maximization
of product

where culture microorganism generates

the product by consuming feed /
substrate Controller

 Feed flow rate is varied continuously Controller is

and it is consumed by microorganism equivalent
to computer
and product is produced
 Amount of product generation is function Reactor
of availability of substrate in reactor
 Therefore controller has to be designed Composition sensor
to manipulate the feed flowrate (Dielectric spectroscopy)

dynamically for maximizing the amount

of product.
Feed flow

Product
Time Time

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