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=Spring 2012= =Senior Design II= Welcome to Team Echo's Wiki site. Here is where you will find all information, notes, PDFs, drawings, etc regarding our project.
 * When any document is uploaded please email the team with those documents to make sure everyone knows of them

__**Team Member Meeting 4/10/2012**__ Northwestern University - AICHE Poster Session Congratulations to Team ECHO for winning.

__**Team Member Meeting 4/8/2012**__ Heavy editing of Northwestern Poster at UIC library

__**Team Member Meeting 3/31/2012**__ Visio PFD Editing of Process Controls onto existing PFDs, Economics research. Plant Layout research

__**Advisor Meeting 3/21/2012**__ Wastewater Treatment Plant control scheme meeting @ Middough

__**Advisor Meeting 3/19/2012 Notes**__ Process Control Tutorial @ Middough

Urea, Prill, and Evaporation section mapped out The concept of PIC, TIC, AEC, master and slave controller, and coefficient controller learned.

Urea Section scalable on the basis of CO2 by use of coefficient controller to NH3 feed valve, and subsequently the entire Urea section. Feedforward and Feedback.

Evap section contains feedback & feedforward control. A startup control scenario is also developed. Look into thermo siphon process.

Prill section adsorbent wheel explained in-depth. Look into specific type of fan Dan mentioned to Oleg. The concept of Null Point was introduced for the prilling section.

__**Advisor Meeting 3/18/2012 Notes**__ -Report Edits explained by Dan -Control Strategy Concepts Introduced -Plant Layout Concepts Introduced
 * Mention Equilibrium limitation in Urea plant section, use headers, 2.95 mole ratio.

Review -Feedforward Control -Feedback Control -Cascade Control Loop w/ master & slave

For now focus on simple loops What do you want to hold constant? Think about what can/will be varied.

For Plant Layout, also think about crane placing, fire nozzles, fire safety.

__**Advisor Meeting 3/11/2012 Notes**__ Overview and run through of topics due for next presentation.

Initial Color Scheme is actually **Initial Control Scheme-** how will the plant's flow rates, temperatures, and pressures be controlled in the unit. - read blackboard document on process control and design- has been reuploaded on this page as "Process Control and Design" - determine where controls need to be placed and decide which type would be best. - will be meeting with Dan at Middough to go over and correct later

- Dan will be sending us information on how plants should be laid out and what to take into consideration when designing it - Many things to take into account:
 * Plant Layout-**
 * land leveled? slopes? marshes?
 * prevailing wind direction?
 * it will be laid out on a pipe rack set up
 * condensers are at a higher level
 * heat exchanges are laid out perpendicular to the pipe rack and at chest height
 * storage tanks are at the lowest points of the plant
 * how will we load material out from the prilling storage tank?
 * etc

Wed, March 14- AIChE meeting at Swenson with a tour of the plant itself. $5[]

Thurs, March 15- CHE 397- CHP Talk to class Dan will be attending and we can show him our initial lay out of the control scheme per block plant after/ before class. -

__**Advisor Meeting 3/3/2012 Notes**__ Presentation 3 Practice run at UIC Library

__**Advisor Cell-Phone Chat 02/26/2012 Notes**__

We're shooting for Thursday to combine our work into a rough draft for the 3rd Presentation.

We will meet with Dan to go over a dry-run presentation on Saturday, March 3rd at the UIC Library at 11am.


 * __Advisor Meeting 02/202012 Notes__**

Teamwork. Work independently to gather thoughts and ideas and perform work, then come together to exchange ideas, show performed work, and bring project forward. Soft deadlines and plans before presentation days to add more structure to workflow.

Mentor Dennis has mass balance of thermal stripping urea plant. We may ask him for help.

If you get stuck, make the process simpler and move forward. - Dan

Focus of next presentation: Aspen economic evaluation, energy sink/load, PFD.

Practice presentation with Dan ~Friday. Have slides ready.

Figure out a way to solve the mass balance on excel either by using excel solver or else breaking the circulation by including values just to get the equations to converge.
 * __Advisor Meeting 02/19/2012 Notes__**

Once mass balance is complete or fixed in some manner, do a preliminary energy balance and determine which units or parts use lots of energy.

Create our own PFD through Visio and include the mass balance on the bottom with the stream #s, T, P, and density (if possible) for each stream.

Then work on determining the energy sink- where cooling water and heated steam will be needed/used in our plant

//Talk With Other Teams for:// (1) Determine what the minimum impurity levels of the NH3 and CO2 will be for our plant (2) UAN group is or is not going to accept our AC in the stream? It would result in them having to add in a process to discard the CO2 but would also result in 2 moles of NH3 for them from just one mole of AC.

//For Next Presentation:// (1) Dress appropriately (2) Do a practice run with Dan before so he can advise us on how to present better and show our knowledge in an efficient manner. (meet at the Library and use their big screens the weekend before the presentation)

TK solver may be of use for solving our system of equations. Label and number all streams with T, P, and composition, component.
 * __Advisor Meeting 02/12/2012 Notes__**

Interact with other teams. We can give the UAN team some of our stream [stream 10 I think which has some AC that they can decompose themselves] AND make Urea Prill which is our target product.

UAN team can take advantage of this rxn: Nitric Acid + AC --> Amm. Nitrate

Things to note: heats of rxn, compression work, vaporization, compressors. Don't worry about pumping liquids. Label T & P of every unit. Composition, phase, components.
 * __Advisor Meeting (01/27/2012) Notes__**

Vizio and AutoCAD may be useful for PFDs.

Kinetics must be known for sizing.

30 minute residence time on reactor.

1. Need to start working on an Overall Energy Balance. (Thermo book will help along with Perrys book) - Greatest energy will be used to compress CO2.
 * __Advisor Meeting (01/16/2012) Notes__**

2. Find evidence to support decision to use STAC CO2 Stripping Process.

3. Rework previous calculations to verify the literature. Determine the equilibrium constants to calculate the equilibrium concentrations. Determine how much CO2, NH3 is converted into Ammonium Carbamate and then determine how much Ammonium Carbamate converts to Urea and H2O.

Stripper Column: Decomposition Column - Ammonium Carbamate decomposes back to NH3 and CO2 in column.

Ejector : Eductor - Conversion Nozzle - Liquid at high pressure enters and the energy from the pressure is converted into kinetic energy, causing the gas to accelerate. - It is such high pressure that it becomes a critical fluid. - The critical fluid enters the chamber and accelerates the other lower pressure gas or liquid, increasing its pressure and therefore accelerates it too. - This combination is now at the desired pressure and can be entered into the reactor.

How much work required overall? how much steam required overall?
 * __Advisor Meeting (01/15/2012) Notes__**

Get Urea Handbooks from library. Speak to Librarian "Klassen" to get exactly what we need.

Cooling Water return at max of 120degrees F; may cause corrosion at higher temps. Must return to piping at 15 psig. Cooling tower will cool water to wet bulb temp. Allow 7 degrees for mass transfer. Use ASHRAE handbook.

Start with Simple BFD --> Expanded BFD --> Enhanced BFD --> PFD --> PID.

We will use initial plant design with CO2 stripping/ Total Recycle process - Stamicarbon (STAC) CO2 Stripping Process.


 * __Advisor Meeting (01/13/2012) Notes__**

Friday 13th meeting notes! “THINK BIG PICTURE RIGHT NOW” - Dan
 * “Chemical Marketing Reporter” will give you the cost of commodity chemicals.
 * Dept of Congress
 * Investigate the specifications of Urea grades.
 * “Hydrocarbon Processing”
 * o Lists licensors of petrochemicals (TOYO, stam,etc)


 * Find the costs [design specs would be great too!] of different plants at various capacities.
 * o Total recycle
 * o Partial recycle
 * o Single-pass


 * Will we give the ammonium nitrate plant a purge stream of NH3 with biuret? We can. It’s up to us.

> Exergy Analysis to determine points of optimization and improvement.
 * It is our decision on which process to undertake. Research PROS/CONS of one process over the other. More output capacity? More energy intensive in terms of utiities?
 * Implications for which process we choose.


 * ASPEN Simulation
 * o //Aspen Process Evaluator//
 * § It sizes everything.
 * § Gives cost and ROI
 * § Lifetime Cycle
 * § Equilibrium Conditions

RESEARCH ASSIGNMENTS Total of 9 possible combinations for Urea plant.
 * Total Recycle | Ammonia Stripping (Liz, Sule)**
 * Partial Recyle | C02 Stripping (Jonathan)**
 * Single-Pass | Thermal Stripping (Oleg)**


 * We MUST have final analysis of comparison of combinations finished to PRESENT in the first general class meeting. We MUST have Aspen simulation finished to PRESENT in the first general class meeting. **

Side Notes:


 * UAN – slow acting fertilizer vs short term
 * Ammonium nitrate – fast fertilizer, polar, rapid
 * Anhydrous ammonia – gaseous, richest concentration [of Nitrogen?], fastest


 * Prill not structurally strong compared to granular.


 * o You want uniform size and shape for pellets because settling and separation will occur.
 * o Can take the fine particles and “stick” them together to make larger agglomerate particle. [I forgot if this was in the fluidized bed unit.]


 * Urea + formaldehyde à insulation plastic (thermoset)


 * Urea plant is the only plant that does not require a catalyst. It is purely a thermo reaction.
 * o Equilibrium conversion.
 * o Too high a reactor temperature maybe produce unwanted side products like Biuret.


 * __Advisor Meeting (01/10/2012) Notes__**

Today we formally met Team Echo's members and advisor. It was agreed to set up a wiki page, create a contact sheet, and start learning about the technology we will need to use for this project.

The primary focus for now is to research on the details pertaining to the Urea & Prill Plant (like the technologies, processes, chemistry, hazards, economics).

To start off, we need to read through the Urea Handout and the two packets that will be available on this site (Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia & United Nations Environment Programme). It has been divided into sections for each person to read.

__Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia:__ 1. Ammonia - Elizabeth 2. Ammonium Compounds - Sule 3. Nitric Acid - Jonathan 4. Urea - Oleg

__United Nations Environmental Programme:__ 1. Part 1. Chapter 1 - Section 3.6 --- Elizabeth 2. Part 1. Section 3.7 - Chapter 4 --- Sule 3. Part 2. Chapter 1 - Chapter 4 --- Jonathan 4. Part 2. Chapter 4 - Chapter 8 --- Oleg

In two weeks the following will be needed: 1. Design Basis 2. Competing Processes 3. Conceptual Process Block Flow Diagram 4. Report Outlines

The next meeting date is: 1/13/12. At 12pm- Share information & Gather Questions from students At 5pm- meet with Dan Rusinak

So lets start learning!!