Acid plants production rates

Another interesting case occurred when attempting to correlate adipic acid plant product nitrate content with production rate. A plot of nitrate content versus production rate produced the worst shotgun effect I have ever seen. Each production level produced a range of nitrate contents. 

The major section in the plant currently restricting higher production rates is the sulfuric acid plant. Therefore, an expansion of the sulfuric acid plant to rates higher than 300 t/day of monohydrate is in the planning stage. 

In conventional alkylation operations, 98 wt. %, sulfuric acid is used as the catalyst, although some processes use HF.The spent alkylation acid, withdrawn as 88-92% acid, is not consumed in the chemical sense, but is diluted by carbonaceous material and small amounts of water. Acid reconditioning is usually completed in a separate plant. The range in makeup acid requirement and in octane quality varies with plant design, with type of feedstock, and with alkylate product rate. A wide variety of feedstocks can be processed through alkylation plants, as both low and high boiling olefins can be alkylated. 

Smelter Acid. If acid is produced involuntarily, as in a smelter operation, it is possible to estimate the cost of acid production in the same manner as that for an elemental sulfur acid plant. To the smelter, however, acid output is simply a mandated concomitant of the process required to produce the metal. Depending on the location of the smelter, the sources of demand, the size of the market, and competition from other producers, the acid sale price may or may not be sufficiently high even to yield a positive net-back, much less a desired rate of return on investment for the acid portion of the operation. This situation does not necessarily lead to closure. Positive or negative, the effect should be registered only in the overall profitability of the entire smelter operation. 

The equilibrium between 138 and the reversible oxidation product 148 is vital to plant and animal life it apparently functions to mediate the transfer of hydrogen atoms. Solutions of L-ascorbic acid, which is readily oxidized, are more sensitive to alkalies than to acids, and the rates of oxidation are lower under slightly acid conditions. The stability of 138... 

This has happened because of pollution control laws which require the acid plant operators to turn down their production rate and/or to install expensive stack ga s cleanup systems to avoid atmospheric pollution. 

Figure 5 shows a comparison of U(IV) concentration profiles realized experimentally for the mixer settler and the pulsed column. The U(IV) profile in the columns shows an inventory of about a tenfold stoichiometric excess for the aqueous phase, relative to the Pu profile to be expected from LWR fuel. The U(IV) production rate in the column can easily be increased to an extent higher than the feed rates of externally produced U(IV) normally required in the conventional reduction column. Therefore one can at least expect equally good results for the U/Pu separation with the electro-reduction column as with the normal procedures. This is also confirmed by experiments in the USA which resulted in the installation of an electro-reduction column in the AGNS Plant at Barnwell. In these experiments even with high acid concentrations (2 M HNO in the aqueous strip, BXS) high plutonium decontamination factors have been achieved (17). 

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