THE FUTURE, - Solvay

Replicated
innovations
58
Replicated innovations > INNOVATIONS 09
207445 209183 209262
ADOS: ADVANCED DILUTION ON SITE
Concentrating
on transporting only
concentrate
THE PROJECT. Hydrogen peroxide (H 2O 2)
produced in a concentration of 70% is often used
more diluted (50 or 35%) by our customers.
So far the dilution has been done at Solvay and
the diluted product transported over long
distances by road. In other words: carrying water!
The solution is simple and already operational in
the United States. The H 2O 2 leaves the factory at
70% concentration in railway tank trucks, and is
transported as close as possible to its fi nal
destination by rail. Only near the fi nal user does
dilution take place. Road tankers are loaded in
advance with the amount of water required for the
proper dilution and concentrated H 2O 2 is
transferred to them from the rail tank trucks. All
that was needed was to supply mobile pumping
equipment, which has been done.
The fi rst two dilution stations in Europe will come
into operation in 2009, one at Chropyne in the
Czech Republic (Omega Corporation), the other at
Bayonne in France (Société LBC).
This transposition of what is practiced in the
United States, where distances are much larger,
is still pertinent in Europe, reducing the number of
trucks on the road and emissions of CO 2. In
addition, the investment necessary for the on-site
dilution is recovered in less than a year.
SBU PEROXIDES
> Michel Freres; Cyril Ausloos; Laurent Cardon;
Marco Donati; Massimo Fedeli; Robert Frasure;
Pascale Libert; Serge Olislagers.
DECREASE OF BATCH CYCLE TIME BY
DYNAMIC-CONTROLLED HOT WATER START
PROCESS
No more unnecessary dead
times
THE PROJECT. The big PVC reactors (140 m³)
in the Rheinberg (Germany) plant are fed with hot
water to launch the polymerization process.
Very hot water can be used to reduce the
charging time, but could lead to heavy fl ash
evaporation with negative effects such as
vibrations on the static support structure.
A complex, dynamically controlled hot water
feeding regulation system has been developed.
This achieves an optimal balance between limiting
the hot water temperature and charging as fast
as possible: unnecessary dead times can thus be
avoided.
This new process reduces the batch cycle time
and hence increases the effi ciency of the
production line.
SBU VINYLS
> Goetz Hoening; Franco Didonato;
Didier Emmerechts; Ruben Gabbarrini;
Lacharojana Naruedom; Gilles Schmit;
Jean-Pierre Steinmetz.
RAPID CLEANING OF HCL COLUMN
“Express” operation:
EUR two million saved!
THE PROJECT. The monitoring of the HCl
distillation column of the Tavaux (France) VCM
plant showed that the lower trays were very dirty.
It was not possible to wait for the next global
stoppage of the plant, which takes place every
four years, to carry out the cleaning.
Some time earlier, the Martorell (Spain) VCM plant
had managed to clean its column without shutting
down production.
A team at Tavaux then started working on how to
replicate this idea.
The principle was adapted to the plant thanks
to some modifi cations and a project was set up.
As a result, the cleaning of the column took only
one day, drastically reducing the production
losses. The potential savings in one shot are
estimated at EUR two million.
SBU VINYLS
> Henri Lacroix; Vincent Bell; André Poinsot;
Louis Thomas.