Title: SCADA-based control system of pilot plant for chemical leaching of high ash Indian coals

Authors: Pratik Swarup Dash; P.V. Radha Krishna Adari; A. Suresh; P.K. Banerjee

Addresses: Raw Materials & Coke Making Research Group, R&D, Tata Steel, Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, Post/Zip Code: 831001, India ' Phoenix Power Products, Akkayyapalem, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, Post/Zip Code: 530016, India ' Raw Materials & Coke Making Research Group, R&D, Tata Steel, Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, Post/Zip Code: 831001, India ' Raw Materials & Coke Making Research Group, R&D, Tata Steel, Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, Post/Zip Code: 831001, India

Abstract: The chemical leaching process of coal opens up many opportunities as it can produce very low ash coal without deteriorating the yield and product quality. In this context, as the chemical leaching process is influenced by many factors such as mineralogy of feed coal, reaction temperature, reagent concentration, solid-to-liquid ratio and reaction time, etc., the maximum ash reduction with minimum operating cost is not practically possible without the assistance of efficient control system. In this paper, the various steps involved in the design and development of the SCADA-based control for chemical leaching process has been discussed. The control system implemented at pilot plant with the production capacity of 500 kg coal per batch is strong and efficient in regulating the process parameters, operating the plant and acquiring the valuable data for further scale-up. The ROCKWELL-based Control-Logix PLC and the state-of-art instruments have been used to accomplish the task.

Keywords: chemical leaching; high ash coal; coal beneficiation; ash reduction; SCADA; leaching; India; control systems.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAAC.2014.065451

International Journal of Automation and Control, 2014 Vol.8 No.4, pp.362 - 380

Received: 15 Apr 2013
Accepted: 29 Mar 2014
Published online: 31 Oct 2014 *

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