A Better Rotating Equipment Strategy for Chemical Process
Chemical plants convert raw materials into products such as industrial chemicals, solvents, fertilizers, polymers, coatings, and specialty chemicals through processes like reaction, separation, mixing, heating, cooling, and material transfer. Many chemical processes handle corrosive, hazardous, or temperature-sensitive materials, so reliable control of this equipment is critical to product quality, overall equipment effectiveness, and process safety.
VIDAR’s IEEE-841 features withstand the elements while integrated variable-speed intelligence maximizes effectiveness, all without the complexity of typical VFD installations. In addition to the variable speed benefits of energy savings and increased system reliability, below are some application specific solutions:
Process Feed & Transfer Pumps
These pumps feed raw materials, intermediates, solvents, or additives into reactors, separation systems, and more. Their flow often directly affects reaction rate, residence time, product quality, or downstream process stability.
Use VIDAR’s PID functionality to automatically regulate reactor flow, column feed, pressure, or tank level. Built-in dry run protection can prevent operating a non-primed pump, saving it from damage.
Slurry Transfer Pumps
Slurry transfer pumps move mixtures containing suspended solids, crystals, catalysts, pigments, or other particulates between process states. They can experience highly variable loading as slurry concentration and viscosity change.
Customizable acceleration/deceleration rates and ‘S-curves’ can reduce hydraulic shock, mechanical stress, and sudden disturbances that can cause solids to settle or lines to plug.
Dryer Process Blowers
These blowers supply or circulate heated air through dryers to remove moisture or solvents from powders, granules, filter cake, or other chemical products. Airflow directly influences drying rates, temperature profiles, and final moisture contents.
PID airflow or pressure control permits stable output, while skip frequencies prevent vibration and bearing stress due to operation in blower or duct-system resonance bands.
Reactor Vent Blowers & Scrubber Fans
These fans draw vapors out from reactors and associated vessels, then redirect it to condensers, scrubbers, or treatment systems.
VIDAR’s pressure-controlled speed regulation maintains reactor headspace pressure without excessive throttling, saving on energy and wear. Underload warnings can be used to detect broken belts or other transmission abnormalities.
Scrubber Circulation Pumps
The role of these pumps is to continuously circulate water or chemical scrubbing solution through spray headers and packing to absorb, neutralize, or remove contaminants from the air stream. Proper circulation results in ideal liquid-to-gas ratios and scrubber removal efficiency.
As these pumps run on continuous schedules, the opportunity for energy savings is drastic by controlling flow or pressure directly instead of throttling output. Setup leak detection to be warned of a loss in system pressure as well.
Boiler Feedwater & Condensate Pumps
Boilers create steam which acts as a centralized source of thermal energy. Steam travels to reactor coils for process heating, reboilers for distillation columns, heat exchangers, and sometimes turbines or HRSGs. Eventually steam turns into hot liquid condensate, which gets recycled as it’s relatively clean compared to makeup water.
Certain boiler topologies need a minimum amount of feedwater to soak up all the BTUs produced at maximum turndown. Without this, extra BTUs can cause short-cycling, so set VIDAR’s minimum speed/flow limit to match the boiler's minimum flow requirements.
Centrifugal Acid Pumps
Acid pumps transfer highly caustic, corrosive, aggressive, and sometimes dangerous fluids like sulfuric or hydrochloric acid. Sulfuric acid can be used for pH adjustment, neutralization, dehydration, and chemical synthesis.
Give VIDAR a downstream pH target and transducer, then let it vary speed to maintain that target. For sealless pumps such as those magnetically driven, avoid the most common failure mode (thermal seizure) with dry-run protection. Set torque limits to prevent magnetic decoupling.
