Plants pilot plant specification, proposal

The following proposal for a pilot plant specification is given in general terms and will... 

In this chapter we have advocated the use of online model-based optimization for the automatic control of SMB plants. This approach has the advantage that the process is automatically operated at its economic optimum while meeting all relevant constraints on purities and flow rates. Application to a pilot-plant-scale reactive SMB process for glucose isomerization showed that implementation at a real plant is feasible - the requirements for additional hardware are moderate (a high-level PC and online concentration measurements in the recycle line). The experiments confirmed the excellent properties of the proposed control scheme. The scheme is extremely versatile, and the cost function and constraints can easily be adapted to any specific separation task. 

Identification of Processing Equipment Requirements. When transferring processes from pilot to commercial-scale operations, a comparative analysis is usually made between the equipment used in the pilot operation with the proposed commercial facility. Process flow diagrams (PFDs) that include material balances from pilot plant experiments can facilitate this analysis. Specifications and requirements for agitation, filtration, drying, and milling devices are established based on experimental results that support these specifications and are documented. 

Pilot plants normally are considered parr of the research and development expense and usually do not represent a pan of the capital of a specific plant. In some cases, especially where desiga reliability is low, the pilot plant may continue to be maintained as part of the plant and used for trouble-shooting or to test proposed plant modifications, in such cases, Ihe cost of the pilot plant becomes a component of the plant capital. Section 22.2-5 discassese the need for pilot plants for the various methods of separation. 

A proposed methodology for the design of isothermal packed towers covering the specific case of CO2 absorption in a hot aqueous solution of potassium carbonate is presented by Joshi et al. (1981). They compare the pilot plant data provided by Benson et al. (1954) with predicted values, and conclude that, in this case, equations based on a bimolecular irreversible reaction provide a satisfactory approximation of the rate enhancement due to chemical reaction. 

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