Introduction

A chemical plant is an arrangement of processing

units (reactors, heat exchanger, pumps, distillation
column, absorber, evaporators, tanks, etc), integrated
with one another in a systematic manner. The plant’s
overall objective is to convert certain raw materials into
desired products using available sources of energy, in the
most economical way.
During its operation, a chemical plant must satisfy
several requirement imposed by its designers and general
technical, economic, and social conditions in the
presence of ever-changing external influences
(disturbances). Among such requirements are the
following:-

(1) Safety:
The safe operation of a chemical process is
a primary requirements foe the well-being of the
people in the plant. Thus the operating pressures,
temperatures, concentrations of chemicals, and so on,
should always be within allowable limits.

(2) Production specifications:

A plant should produce the
desired amounts and quality of the final products. For
example, we may require the production of 2 million
pounds of ethylene per day, of 99% purity. Therefore,
a control system is needed to ensure that the
production level (2 million pounds per day) and purity
specifications (99.5% ethylene) are satisfied.

(3) Environmental regulations:

 Various federal and state laws may
specify that the temperatures, concentrations of
chemicals, and flow rates of the effluent from a plant be
within certain limits. Such regulations exist, for example,
on the amounts of SO2 that a plant can reject to the
atmosphere, and on the quality of water returned to a
river or a lake.

(4) Operational constraints:

The various types of equipment used in a
chemical plant have constraints inherent to their
operation. Such constraints should be satisfied
throughout the operation of plant. Foe example, pumps
should maintain a certain net positive suction heads;
distillation columns should not flooded; the temperature
in a catalytic reactor should not exceed an upper limit
since the catalyst will be destroyed.

(5) Economics:
The operation of plant must confirm with the
market conditions, that is, the availability of raw material
and the demand of final products. Thus it is required that
the operating conditions are controlled at given optimum
levels of minimum operating cost, maximum profit, and
so on.
All the requirements listed above dictate the need for the
continuous monitoring of the operation of chemical plant
and external intervention (control) to guarantee the
satisfaction of operational objectives. This is
accomplished of a rational arrangement of equipment
(measuring devices, valves, controllers, computers) and
human intervention (plant designers, plant operators),
which together constitute control system.
Control Over Continuous Stir Tank Reactor:
Temperature Control:
For temperature control we employed
cascade control configuration. In a cascade control
configuration we have one manipulated variable and
more than one measurement.
The reaction is endothermic and heat is supplied by
dowtherm, which flows in the jacket around the tank.
The control objective is to keep the temperature of the
reacting mixture, T, constant at the desired value.
Possible disturbances to the reactor include the feed
temperature Tf. and the dowtherm temperature Th. The
only manipulated variable is the dowtherm flow rate Fh.
Configuration:
We control the reaction temperature by measuring T h and
taking control action before its effect has been felt by the
reacting mixture. Thus if Th goes down, increase the flow
rate of dowtherm to give the same amount of heat.
Decrease the flow rate when Th increases. Disturbances
arising within the secondary loop are corrected by the
secondary controller before they can affect the value of
the primary controlled output.

Control Over Heat Exchanger:

The control objective is
to keep the exit temperature at 110 oC for our shell and
tube heat exchanger.
The possible disturbances are:
 (1) Offset of temperature value from its desired
value of 110oC.
(2) Variation in temperature of dowtherm used as a
coolant media.

Control over Distillation Column:

Cascade
control is usually employed to regulate the temperature
(and consequently the concentration) at the bottom or top
of a distillation column.
Chemical
process
Control