Value addition to V2O5 plant

In next job I did this value addition thing. So it was not really energy audit - rather it was problem solving coupled with value addition.

The sludge from alumina refineries contain lot of Vanadium in V3+ form which is discarded as waste from aluminium plant. We had one large alumina plant in eastern part of the country. The other unit located in West was getting this sludge from Alumina plant for the recovery of vanadium in V2O5 form which is used as a catalyst in many processes.

The basic process is to convert the vanadium in sludge into its ammonium form & then recover it. So in the process unit was generating waste containing ammonia & chlorides. The waste was first tretaed with caustic & then is treated for ammonia removal in the stripper.

After study of the entire system & as usual after estimates of savings for efforts required, I proposed a change in the raw material used for ammonium salt conversion. This had resulted in the following benefits.

1. Elimination of hazardous acidic gas generation


2. Saving on operation of acidic gas scrubber operation


3. Elimination of chloride waste


4. Increased life of equipments due to eleimination of acidic gases


5. Recovery of Anions in other forms by converting them in useful product using third raw material in a separate waste treatment process


6. Finally almost neutral waste generation


7. No caustic treatment for ammoniacal water saving operating cost

Thus it resulted in various savings in treatment costs, life of equipments, additional marketable product & extra revenue.

Continue to read this post...

Collapse this post back.

Audit of Cooling Tower in Phosphoric Acid Plant

My first process audit was to identify the problem areas in a cooling tower in phaosphoric acid plant. In this plant the cooling water was used for direct process cooling i.e. it was coming in contact with process gases for their cooling. So the pH of CW was very low at ~1-2. This was causing many problems in terms of failure of mechanical components leading to vibration problems & vary high approach of 11°C compared to design value of 3.9°C.



This report shows how can you attack on a problem for troubleshooting going in sequncial steps one by one. I used my cooling tower model which is already available on this blog here & found a very good match of design data. Then I simulated the factor affecting the performance of cooling tower one by one. The impact of each factor led to finally the same approach of ~10°C, which indicates the accuracy of evaluation.

The complete report on the same is available for Download here.

Continue to read this post...

Collapse this post back.

First Audit - NDT Systems - Learning Auditing skills

My First audit was not really energy audit rather it was system audit for NDT (Non destructive testing) Deptt in a large Cement plant.

I am attaching the summary sheet & detailed report for understanding that a person like me who doesn't knew anything about those processes did the audit of the entire system. This will help you in understanding how one can device the approach for any problem solving / task. The approach was simple, what is required & what is being exercised. The GAP is to be identified. The proposed system should be effective, should result in useful output.

In this plant, the proposals were implemented & they reduced downtime significantly.

This exercise also told me how to carry out any audit. How to cross question different people. How to gather information. Its a very essential part of process engineer's life for problem solving & effective troubleshooting as well as for audit be it process audit, energy audit or any other system audit.

To Download...Clcik here....Summary , Full Report

Continue to read this post...

Collapse this post back.