Project Synopsis
Develop a preliminary process design and cost estimate for consolidating several pigment manufacturing processes into one location.
Project Summary
PIGMENT PRODUCTION CONSOLIDATION PROCESS DESIGN (FEL-1)
The client, a world-wide producer of pigments and chemicals, produces a particular pigment at various manufacturing facilities. The purpose of this project, contracted to Process Engineering Associates, LLC (PROCESS) by the client’s corporate office, was to develop an initial FEL-1 design for a unit capable of consolidating production within a single facility.
Project tasks included:
- Process design basis preparation, which involved development of the equipment design and sizing requirements for the new systems.
- Preparation of heat and material balances (HMBs) and process flow diagrams (PFDs), which involved the simulation of multi-step batch processes based on client operating data and procedures. The HMBs were developed to provide assessments of cycle time, scaling, equipment capacity, and utility requirements. PFDs were then generated for each product to depict the desired process configuration and primary equipment items.
- Preparation of equipment summary schematics, which involved the development of summary drawings depicting the primary equipment items, their sizes/capacities, and major stream summaries. Because piping & instrumentation diagrams (P&IDs) were not developed for this stage of the project, these drawings provided an outline of the major equipment items involved within each area of the process, as well as shared equipment for parallel operations within each area. Furthermore, the schematics were used to consolidate stream information from the HMBs based on design throughputs.
- Preparation of equipment list, which involved the development of a list of process equipment information for the desired scaled capacity. The list included preliminary equipment sizing and material selections for production equipment as well as storage and affected utility systems.
- Preparation of preliminary major equipment installed cost estimate, which involved development of a budgetary factored installed cost estimate for the primary equipment items. Equipment items included reactors, a solvent recovery system, and some glass lined equipment items.
Industry Type
- Pigment Manufacturing
Utilized Skills
- Preliminary process design
- Preliminary process equipment sizing