Yokogawa provides STARDOM and FAST/TOOLS for biomass pilot plant

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Executive Summary

The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

The University of Sydney's School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering is world renowned for cutting edge technology innovation. The university has obtained funding from the Australian Government's National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) Program to build an advanced hydrothermal biofuel research plant on its campus that converts non-food biomass resources to biofuel under hydrothermal conditions (i.e. in water at up to 300°C and up to 250 atmospheres). The first semi-automated, continuous-flow kilo-scale research facility of its kind in Australia, this pilot plant will research how non-food feed stock biomass such as woody plant matter can be used to produce biofuels and other chemicals more efficiently.

As this facility runs semi-continuously for days at a time at high temperatures and pressures, it was essential to have a control system and SCADA interface that would be able to safely control the process while allowing researchers to change trending, reporting, batch, and test conditions without having to stop the process. This allows researchers to modify tests as research progresses, while having on-demand access to reports. They are also able to access the SCADA operation and engineering screens remotely, via a Web browser, and can receive reports emailed by the system that update them on the status of a test. This last feature is quite convenient as it frees researchers to go on to other tasks while waiting for a test to complete.

The remote asset management capability drives down operating costs while optimizing the sharing and exchange of information. This is made possible by the incorporation of the latest Web technologies in the Java-based FAST/TOOLS engineering and maintenance environment.

About the University of Sydney's School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Established in 1946, the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Sydney was Australia's first university-level chemical engineering program. The school is very active in carrying out a wide variety of cutting edge research in the chemical and biomolecular engineering fields.

The Challenges and the Solutions

The first challenge for the university was the limited funds available to procure a control solution for this project. Pressures of up to 250 atmospheres at temperatures as high as 300°C require quality equipment that is highly reliable. Yokogawa partnered with the university to provide the required instrumentation, control system, SCADA software, and control solution engineering for a state of the art, research friendly control solution that was within the available budget. Yokogawa also provided ongoing engineering support including several major control strategy modifications as the development work on the research plant progressed.

With this pilot plant, researchers can test many different substances under a wide variety of test conditions, then rerun the tests for verification purposes. This requires the ability to quickly and easily obtain and modify trends and reports in response to changing research requirements. Yokogawa's FAST/TOOLS SCADA software is ideal for this purpose, allowing the researchers to do this directly and online, thereby greatly facilitating their efforts to improve biofuel production and develop it into a commercially viable, sustainable energy source.

Main FAST/TOOLS screen in running mode

Main FAST/TOOLS screen in running mode

Pilot plant

Pilot plant

One of the benefits for the university is that FAST/TOOLS is an "all in one" SCADA solution that functions as a data historian, allows the local customization of trending functions, and has a reporting function. All data is stored by FAST/TOOLS. Data can also be exported as a CSV file for basic analysis in Excel and long-term storage.

Reports are generated after each batch and the researchers can compare the results with their criteria for that particular test. As the individual batch tests are usually run by different researchers from a variety of companies, there is usually no need to compare results from different batches.

Customer Satisfaction

Joint leader of the NCRIS project, Professor Brian Haynes of the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering was looking for companies who could work with the research requirements of the university. Yokogawa's capability to partner with the university on the project showed that the company is dedicated to providing quality solutions and is able to engineer these solutions to meet changing research requirements.

The advanced control capabilities of the integrated Yokogawa solution provide an excellent research solution which can easily be customized as the research evolves. Yokogawa pressure, temperature, and Coriolis mass flow transmitters were utilized because of their reliability, ease of configuration, and accuracy.

Project Member

From the left, Professor Thomas Maschmeyer of the School of Chemistry, Professor Haynes, Senior Process Research Engineer Sergio L. Londono of the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and Mark Biggin and Jonathon Lee from Yokogawa

업종

  • 바이오연료

    지구 온난화를 막기 위해 바이오 연료의 생산과 소비가 전 세계적으로 증가하고 있습니다. Yokogawa는 화학, 석유 및 기타 산업에 대한 측정 및 제어 솔루션의 선도적 제공 업체로서 바이오 에탄올 및 기타 재생 가능 연료의 안정적이고 효율적인 생산을 보장하는 데 사용할 수 있는 기술을 개발했습니다.

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  • 화학

    화학 플랜트는 연속 및 Batch 생산 공정에 의존하며, 각각은 제어 시스템에 대한 다양한 요구 사항을 제시합니다. 연속 공정은 실패하지 않고 생산 라인을 중단시키는 견고하고 안정적인 제어 시스템을 필요로하는 반면, Batch 공정의 중요성은 수식, 절차 및 공정을 조정하는 데 있어 큰 유연성을 허용하는 제어 시스템을 갖추는 데 있습니다. 두 종류의 시스템 모두 제품의 사용 가능한 품질 내역에서 관리되어야 하며 비일상적인 작업을 수행할 수 있어야 합니다. Yokogawa는 광범위한 제품 포트폴리오, 숙련된 시스템 엔지니어 및 글로벌 영업 및 서비스 네트워크를 통해 모든 공장 공정에 대한 솔루션을 제공합니다.

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Related Products & Solutions

  • FAST/TOOLS

    FAST(Flexible Advanced System Techniques) 프로젝트로 시작된 FAST/TOOLS는 포괄적인 완전 통합형 SCADA 애플리케이션 제품군입니다. 강력하고 유연한 FAST/TOOLS는 50포인트 단위공정에서 수천 마일이상 확장되는 수백만 포인트 규모의 offshore 생산 및 Pipeline 시스템에 이르는 설비를 제공합니다.

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    프로세스 공장에서 원격 위치에 이르기까지 당사의 공정제어 PLC 및 원격 터미널 장치 (RTU)는 사용자가 운영의 우수성을 극대화하도록 돕습니다.

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