Pilot plants units

Consider the possibility of scahng up the design of a new system from experimental data obtained in a laboratory-bench scale or a small pilot-plant unit. 

The PULSAR units are high efficiency static aerators that have been developed for municipal wastewater treatment plants and have successfully been used over extended periods of time without any operational problems such as unstable operation or plugging up during intermittent operation of the air pumps (Chourda-kis, 1999). Data have been collected from a pilot plant unit at the Wastewater Treatment plant of the Industrial Park (Herakleion, Crete). A series of experiments were conducted for the determination of the mass transfer coefficient (kLa) and are shown in Figure 17.4. The data are also available in tabular form as part of the parameter estimation input files provided with the enclosed CD. 

The objective of the present study is to develop a cross-flow filtration module operated under low transmembrane pressure drop that can result in high permeate flux, and also to demonstrate the efficient use of such a module to continuously separate wax from ultrafine iron catalyst particles from simulated FTS catalyst/ wax slurry products from an SBCR pilot plant unit. An important goal of this research was to monitor and record cross-flow flux measurements over a longterm time-on-stream (TOS) period (500+ h). Two types (active and passive) of permeate flux maintenance procedures were developed and tested during this study. Depending on the efficiency of different flux maintenance or filter media cleaning procedures employed over the long-term test to stabilize the flux over time, the most efficient procedure can be selected for further development and cost optimization. The effect of mono-olefins and aliphatic alcohols on permeate flux and on the efficiency of the filter membrane for catalyst/wax separation was also studied. 

Finally, in late 1982, just prior to RCC commercial start-up, a more advanced catalyst was developed and prepared in several commercial-size 20-ton batches. It also was tested in the 200 B/D pilot plant unit, and shown to be an excellent catalyst. Over 1,000 tons of this catalyst, designated DZ-40, was produced commercially and used for start-up and two months successful reduced crude operation.(11)... 

Entrainment rates measured in a laboratory or pilot plant unit can also underpredict entrainment rates in commercial nnits if the solids tend to form clusters. This could be the case if the commercial-scale plant contains baffles and the laboratory or pilot plants do not. This was the case illnstrated in Fignre 11.10. Even the spacing of the baffles can have an effect on the entrainment rate. Adding baffles to a fluidized bed regenerator may actnally increase entrainment rates. As discussed above, particle clusters may need snfficient time in the emnlsion or bnbble region of the bed to form. Thus, a particle cluster may start growing near the bottom of the bed and continue to grow as it travels to the top of the bed. Baffles spaced... 

Using the above criteria, the other variables that determine reactor performance are affected. For example, using the scale-up rule of Eqn. 5.3-25, the process-side heat-transfer coefficient in the large reactor may be lower by 25% or so. Since the reaction may be strongly exothermic, the new heat transfer area should be scaled up, with more area per unit volume installed in the large reactor than in the pilot plant unit. 

The material comes off as flakes 1-3 mm or less thick. They are broken up to standard size of about g in. square. That process makes fines that are recycled to the dryer feed. Drying times fall in the range of 3-12 sec. Many laboratory investigations have been made of drying rates and heat transfer coefficients, but it appears that the only satisfactory basis for sizing plant equipment is pilot plant data obtained with a drum of a foot or more in diameter. Usually plant performance is superior to that of pilot plant units because of steadier long time operation. 

Figure 6. Proposed 35,000 gallon-per-day sea water conversion pilot plant unit...

Beet sugar syrups Laboratory plant Pilot plant Unit... 

The smallest feasible tower diameter size is 2 ft, but any size over 2 ft may be chosen. For pilot plant units, however, you may use the special optional inputs shown in Table 3.4. These same inputs are required for any of the three tray types, and allow accurate program answers for diameters smaller than 2 ft. 

All of these conditions can be met using smaller D/T ratios and narrower blade heights than are used normally in a pilot unit. If one uses the same impeller type in both the pilot and commercial units, however, it may not be possible to come close to the long blend time that will be obtained in the commercial unit. Radial flow impellers can be excellent models in a pilot plant unit for axial flow impellers in a commercial unit. 

One technique to make the pilot plant unit more similar to the plant scale unit is to use impellers of relatively narrow blade width compared to their traditional blade widths used with commercial impellers in the plant. This is purposely reducing the blending performance and improving the shear rate performance in the pilot plant by using impellers of relatively narrow blade width. The blade width cannot be so small that it gets out of proportion to the process participant particles. 

Based on long years of experience with former standard SFE-pilot plants, the SITEC crew started in 1984 to design and develop a modular line of laboratory and pilot plant units. In the meantime, nearly 50 of such units have been built and installed in 14 countries worldwide but all of them have been adapted to the customers requirements based on these basic moduls. 

Supercritical fluid extraction has now found a lot of applications in different fields (polymers, aromas and essential oils, fats, natural products, soil decontamination...) and several production units are operated in agroalimentary (coffee, hop...) and pharmaceutical industries. In order to estimate the economical interest of these applications, technical and economical extrapolation methods have been developed. These methods are dependent of the nature of the extraction and are based on experimental results obtained on pilot plant units. We describe here a general extrapolation procedure, and a case study is presented to illustrate an economical estimation of a supercritical fluid extraction. 

The design will always require some experimental data that have to be determined on a pilot plant unit. 

Blasetti, A., Ng, S and de Lasa, H. I Catalytic Cracking of Gas Oil in a Novel FCC Pilot Plant Unit with Heat Exchange Reactor Performance, in Circulating Fluidized Bed Technology IV (Amos A. Avidan, ed.), pp. 553-558. Somerset, Pennsylvania (1993). 

The use of an integrated membrane process for the clarification and the concentration of citms and carrot juices was proposed as an alternative to the traditional techniques of the agro-food industry [151]. The ultrafiltration process was studied on a pilot plant unit to clarify the raw juice. A clear phase was produced in this step and it was used for concentration by successive membrane treatments. The RO process, performed on a laboratory plant unit, was used to preconcentrate the permeate from UF up to 15-20 g TSS/lOO g. A final OMD step yielded a concentration of the retentate from the RO up to 60-63 g TSS/lOO g. 

These operations were tested in both laboratory and pilot plant units. The product was far superior to apple juice produced by conventional methods. Details on investment cost of conventional and integrated membrane processes are... 

Steve PoLomchak obtained electron microprobe profiles. Ying-Mei Chen obtained the XRD patterns. A1 Novak operated the pilot plant units. 

Figure 1. PDM pilot plant unit schematic diagram. (Reprinted from ref. 9. Copyright 1988 American Chemical Society.)...

To separate two or more solutes by chromatography, in a pilot-plant unit designed for maximum economy, the operating conditions will generally be established in the following order (V4) ... 

Smaller continuous fluid bed systems, like the one shown inFig. 38,1 have been developed which operate with a high concentration of ion exchange resin and suspended solids. These units are 80% smaller than the conventional resin-in-pulp plants of the type which are used in the treatment of uranium ore slurries. 1 The pilot plant unit, which would probably be the size needed for processing commercial fermentation broths, had dimensions per contact chamber of 0.82 m x 0.82 mwithafluid bed height of 0.82 mand an additional 0.16 m for free board. The unit has been successfully operated with 25 to 50% resin and up to 45% suspended solids. 

Nearly every supplier of evaporation equipment and systems maintains a pilot plant facility where, for a fee, different evaporation schemes can be set up. Data obtained from several days of testing on small laboratory or pilot plant units can be good predictors of evaporator performance, and these data are very helpful in the scaling-up calculations for production-sized installations. Samplers obtained from the test work can be used to check the mass balances, concentrations, and product quality. Serious operational problems like foaming, plugging, and fouling can occur in even short pilot plant tests and can point to the need for alternative evaporator types or modified designs. 

In order to practically evaluate a design, you need to conduct test work on either a specific manufecturer s laboratory/pilot plant unit or design and build a test unit of your own. The former case is recommended because of the obvious advantages involved in making use of the manufacturer s... 

The synthesis of olefins from methanol using aluminophosphate molecular sieve catalysts was studied [76], Process studies were conducted in a fluid-ized-bed bench-scale pilot plant unit utilizing small-pore silicaluminophosph-ate catalyst synthesized at Union Carbide. These catalysts are particularly effective in the catalytic conversion of methanol to olefins, when compared to the performance of conventional aluminosilicate zeolites. The process exhibited excellent selectivities toward ethylene and propylene, which could be varied considerably. Over 50 wt% of ethylene and 50 wt% propylene were synthesized on the same catalyst, using different combinations of temperatures and pressures. These selectivities were obtained at 100% conversion of methanol. Targeting light olefins in general, a selectivity of over 95% C2-C4 olefins was obtained. The catalyst exhibited steady performance and unaltered... 

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