With the deepening reform in recent years, the alcohol plant encounters many unprecedented market crises like below:
· Excessive alcohol production, unbalanced production, and demand
· Shrinking alcohol production market with fierce competition
· High cost and energy-intensive production process
· Serious pollution by alcohol waste liquids needs imminent treatment
The new idea for the development of the alcohol industry is to actively introduce new technologies, new equipment, and put them into use as soon as possible. Automation and computer control can solve the problem of low control quality of traditional measuring instruments; at the same time, it lays the foundation for ensuring the stability of the alcohol production process and alcohol quality.
Background
The alcohol plant mentioned in this article is one of our typical customers in this industry. We have been to plant several times for on-site investigation, technical communication, and installation, etc. In order to ensure more efficient production, the automation reform involves a wide range of products, including vortex flow meters, electromagnetic flow meters, metal tube rotor flow meters, Coriolis mass flow meters, and volumetric water meters, etc.
Difficulties
1. There aren't many on-site technique professionals in the alcohol plant while strong technical support capability is the key to the smooth implementation of the project.
2. Old production pipelines are not suitable for installing flow meters, which is a big challenge to do the on-site installation.
3. The time is limited for on-site shutdown and installation. It is very difficult to complete the installation and commissioning of all instruments within two weeks.
Solutions
Pay attention to the influence of measurement accuracy caused by variable pipeline diameter
The pipeline diameter change is easily ignored during the installation of the flow meter. Many customers know that they can reduce the pipeline diameter to make the pipe full, but they don’t guarantee the straight pipeline length after the reduction, which has a great impact on the measurement accuracy.
The pipe-type flow meter is a part of the pipeline, and the upstream side should be no less than 10 times of the pipe diameter, and the downstream side should be no less than 5 times.
We make variable guidance for the improper pipe diameters on the site to ensure stable and accurate operation of the flow meter.
Electromagnetic flow meter for wastewater treatment
The wastewater in the alcohol production process mainly comes from the alcohol residue discharged after the distillation fermentation matured, the washing water of the production equipment, and the cooling water of the boiling, saccharification, fermentation, distillation process etc.
Alcohol wastewater is organic with high concentration, high temperature, and high suspended matter, which is serious pollution for the environment. In the sewage treatment process, the raw sewage is corrosive with containing particles, suspended solids, solid-liquid mixture, which has requirements for corrosion resistance of the product.
For the selection of electromagnetic flow meters, we must pay attention to:
1. Adopt the corrosion-resistant lining material polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and the acid-resistant electrode tantalum electrode (Ta) to measure the acidic liquid transport pipeline during the production process.
2. Using a corrosion-resistant and high-temperature resistant lining material, a polyfluoropropylene (F46), and a salt-resistant corrosion-resistant HC electrode to measure a salt solution transport pipeline at a high temperature of 130 ° C.
3. The flow measurement points at some locations in the plant apply an explosion-proof (BT4) meter.
The installation site and environmental requirements of the vortex flow meter
During the installation of the vortex flow meter, there might be some wrong installations. It is necessary to guide the customer to choose the installation place and environment properly.
The position of the vortex flow meter installation must have enough straight pipe sections upstream and downstream, and the pipe cannot be bent. As the wrong installation position showed below, the flow meter measurement accuracy will be greatly affected.
correct wrong
It is wrong to carry the flow meter welding during the installation process, which may damage the flow meter.
On-site installation of orifice flow meter
The orifice flow meter is large and heavy. It takes two working days to install a complete flow meter, which requires us to select and install the flow meter according to the actual situation.
For example, the selection of the differential pressure transmitter requires consideration of the influence of the temperature on the length of the breath tube. When the steam temperature is lower than 200 °C, the effect is not significant. However, if it exceeds 200 °C, it is necessary to increase the length to ensure the normal and stable operation of the product.
With the full support of the Micro Sensor flow technology team, the Alcohol Plant project successfully completed the installation and commissioning of all flow meters and instruments within 2 weeks. The production line resumes normal production as planned, and the flow monitoring of the entire production process is realized. Moreover, detailed data support is established for the entire process to control all aspects.
We have a professional R&D team, feel free to contact us for customized products and solutions.
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