Scrubber application

Panametrics’ products provided benefits to the customer

Summary
This customer supplies district heating and electricity for the region of Sønderborg.
The plant processes about 70.000 tons of waste a year. For one of their waste
applications a MAG meter failed within 6 months, and was successfully replaced
with a Panametrics Aquatrans AT600.

Application
This is a “cogeneration” plant that runs both on waste and natural gas.
Cogeneration basically consists of two units; a waste incineration plant where the
energy from the waste is converted into electricity and district heating, and a gas
turbine generator plant that produces electricity and district heating based on
natural gas from the gas extraction areas in the North Sea.
Historically, incineration of waste has been developed as a method of reducing the
amount of waste that is or should be landfilled. After the incineration process, the
weight of the waste is reduced to approximately 21% and its volume is only about
6% of the original.
The cogeneration plant has recently been
extended with a Geothermal plant and a
Gasification furnace. The picture to the right
shows the pipeline from the Geothermal plant
to the existing cogeneration plant.
The Geothermal plant sources water with a
temperature of 48°C from a depth of 1200m.
Heat pumps are used to extract energy from
this water for district heating. The geothermal
plant in combined with the heat pumps, and produce heated water for the district
heating grid. The gasification plant burns the gassified wood pellets, and then
heats district water as well. Meaning, the 2 plants are only connected via the
Benefits:
• Easy to install
• Not affected by contaminates
• 4-20mA output
Application note
Scrubber application
district heating grid. A Panametrics AquaTrans AT600 was
supplied to control the heat pumps.
The Gasification furnace runs on biomass. Wood pellets are
heated to a temperature where they release their gas. As
mentioned above, all energy used for heating of district heat
water.
The flue gases from the combustion of waste are purified by
a scrubber that "scents" the smoke for acidic components
and heavy metals as well as SO2 and Dioxin. The wash water
from this scrubber is purified in the plant's own wastewater
treatment plant.
Challenge
Initially a MAG meter was installed on the water from the
scrubber. After half a year it stopped working.
The installation was done with a remote electronic on the
wall, and when the electrician performed an on-site check
nothing showed on the display. Upon opening the display,
water came out of the electronics.
They found, that the glands around the electrodes in the
MAG meters were etched and water had entered into the
surrounding housing of the MAG meter, traveled inside the
cable going from the MAG meter to the remote display, and
finally destroyed both the MAG meter and the electronic
unit on the wall. The water from the scubber is acid and
contaminated with particles from the flue gas.
Solution
For the heat pumps water flow at high temperature (>140°C),
the customer requested to perform the measurement
without any process shutdown. Plastic pipes were installed in
the previous MAG meter positions, a Panametrics AquaTrans
AT600 meter replaced the MAG meter and has not had any
issues since.
Specifications (OPT)
• Aquatrans AT600 with high temperature transducers were
successfully used for the heat pumps water lines
• Heat pumps: from 100°C to 150°C (212°F to 302°F)
Water from scrubber: 30°C (86°F)
• Heat pumps: DN400 (16")
Water from scrubber: DN50 (2")