Background
Kawartha Ethanol Inc. is an Ontario company currently operating a corn ethanol production facility in Havelock, Ontario with a nameplate capacity to produce 80 million liters of fuel-grade ethanol per year. A byproduct of the production of ethanol is a wet mash. The mash can be sold, but is more valuable if it is dried. This customer purchased a used drying plant from the USA which came without a control panel or valve train. The burner has an input of up to 75,000,000 BTUH, but is restricted to 50,000,000 BTUH in this application.
Challenge
The original equipment manufacturer was no longer in business and there was no technical support for the product. The US-based consultants were not familiar with the Ontario Fuels Safety Codes. The customer could not find local support in their rural area.
Results
ProTherm designed and built a valve train to provide 50,000 Cubic feet per hour of Natural Gas, with an inlet pressure of 45 PSI, outlet pressure of 5 PSI to the burner.
A Fireye Nexus flame safeguard and linkage less control system was used to monitor flame safety conditions and provide accurate control of gas and combustion air. The Fireye Nexus is one of the most technically sophisticated flame monitoring and control systems.
The control panel contains the Fireye controller, the Fireye HMI, a Siemens PLC and the Siemens HMI. The Siemens PLC communicates with the Siemens DCS system already in place which runs the existing plant operations.
ProTherm engineering staff worked with the customer’s production IT support team to integrate the two systems.