Modeling and Simulation for S.S.

Re-Rolling Mills Waste Treatment

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Abstract: The S.S. Re-Rolling mills use mixture of acids to wash the plates during process. This acid mixture becomes waste and is currently treated by lime which generates lot of solid sludge. A treatment process of commercial importance has been developed to convert this effluent into a useful product. The S.S. Re-Rolling mills are of different size and hence effluent generated are of varying magnitude ranging from 4000 liters / day to 15,000 liters / day. The process developed therefore needs to be simplified to treat different quantity of waste liquor. This paper offers computer program for the sizing of various equipments, important components and certain important features of lay-out of the treatment plant. The treatment process is briefly discussed first with flow diagram. With the help of equipment occupancy chart, the need of various size of equipment is worked out and finally the model is presented. The simulation of the model is done using C programming language.

Keywords: S.S. Re-Rolling Mill Waste, Waste Treatment, Algorithm, Mathematical model, Simulation Introduction The industrial process for the treatment of the waste from S.S. Re-rolling mill has been developed (1).The paper briefly describes the process with flow diagram. The details of the process on industrial scale have been worked out during the exercise performed to

submit the report to Department of Science and Technology (DST) under Technology Transfer Scheme. The industries generate effluent of different magnitude and hence the treatment plant required is also of different size. Since the cost of treatment may not be affordable by a single unit, number of units can come together, form a cluster to generate and treat the larger quantity of effluent. Thus the need for the size of the effluent treatment plant will vary. Looking at the need the paper describes the modeling and simulation for the above case. In the last segment of this paper the application of this simulation is explained.

Process Description
The industrial process for said treatment is shown along with the flow diagram. Pl. refer fig.1. The pickling liquor is treated for a day with the Mild Steel Scrap. The clear supernatant liquor is then neutralized to pH 7 by adding pickling liquor to the Ammonium hydroxide solution. This is done in a neutralizing tank. Neutralization takes 40 minutes. The slurry is then circulated through the spray reactor, three-phase separator and then is returned to the neutralizing tank. Slurry gets sprayed in the reactor and there it gets oxidized with air. The time for oxidation ranges from 20 to 45 minutes, judged by the color change of the slurry to reddish brown. The mass then is separated in the three phase separator into liquid and solid phase. The wet precipitates are collected, dried and calcined in furnace to obtain red iron oxide.

Mathematical Model

The problem involves treatment of waste pickling liquor generated by industry. Normally the quantity remains between 4000 and 15000 liters/day. The material flow is already described. Now the problem remains to design the equipment used at various stages. The liquor is available continuously and total collection in a day is, say, Q liters. The segment of the process which involves circulation of pickling liquor from storage tank of pickling liquor to oxidizer, to separator and then back to neutralizer; 1st segment of the process, takes 2.5 hr. The steps of filtration, moulding, drying and calcinations then follows. The quantity of the material to be handled changes from 1 st segment of the process to different subsequent steps of the process. Hence selection of the size of the equipment for 1st segment of the process is done separately and selection of the equipment for each stage is done separately. For 1st segment of the process, per 8 hours three cycles can be conveniently completed without any hassle. Therefore, in 24 hours, 9 cycles can be completed. Hence, the capacity of the equipment in 1st segment of the process is chosen as compatible to 9th part of the total pickling liquor production. As said before, in the subsequent operations, there are filtration, moulding, drying and calcination. The rate of filtration, rate of drying and rate of calcination are all established in the laboratory, providing necessary design data. Further, equipments for operation like filtration, drying and calcination are available in standard sizes. Hence, equipment sizing for all these operations are done depending upon batch size and commercially available equipment size. Help of Equipment occupancy chart is taken. Pl refer fig. 2. From the equipment occupancy chart also, it becomes clear that sizing of the set of equipment for

1st segment of the process should be done as a single unit and it should again match the intake requirement and equipment availability of subsequent operations. The equipments that are used subsequently are available with the standard sizes, hence they are chosen such that they can treat the desired amount of material (either one, two three or any integer no. of batches from 1st segment of the process.) The model is developed for the sizing of all the equipments that are used in entire process. There are many assumptions and thumb rules to simplify the modeling procedures. But this is based on the engineering judgment obtained while undertaking the process at pilot scale and authors believe that it will be applicable at all scale. Conventional design equations are used to develop the mathematical model for different units of the entire plant. Algorithm 1. Enter the amount of pickling liquor generated per day. 2. Amount of Scrap quantity required, decided based on experimental study, is calculated. 3. Storage tank: Storage tank volume is calculated. Based on tank volume, the diameter and height of the tank is calculated. 4. Neutralizer: Quantity of Ammonium Hydroxide is calculated based on amount of pickling liquor. 5. Volume of neutralizing tank which is volume required to tackle the neutralized liquid. 6. Pump Capacity: Based on the neutralizer volume and the number of times liquid is to be circulated in the 1st segment of process (which is based on experimental observations), the pump capacity is calculated.

7. Cross-sectional area and the Diameter of the liquid pipe is calculated using the volumetric flowrate and the velocity of the entering liquid (assumed). Then after, nearest standard pipe size for liquid is chosen. 8. Blower: Blower pipe diameter, is chosen from the available standard pipe and is taken to be 2.5 to 3 times the liquid pipe diameter. 9. Volumetric flowrate of blower is calculated using the velocity of the gas (assumption based on pilot plant study) and the cross-sectional area of the gas pipe. 10. Based on the volumetric flowrate and assumed volumetric efficiency of blower, the blower capacity is calculated and the nearest standard blower is chosen. 11. Spray reactor: The cross-sectional area and the diameter of the spray reactor is calculated using the velocity of the gas in the spray reactor (assumed) and volumetric flowrate. 12. Flowarea for the gas is assumed to be 66% of the total available area and remaining is assumed to be that of liquid. 13. Total flowarea is calculated based on the gas flowarea (gas flowarea is 66.6% of total flowarea). 14. Total flowarea is also calculated based on the liquid flowarea (liquid flowarea is 33.3% of total flowarea). Liquid flowarea is calculated based on pump capacity and entering velocity of liquid. 15. The higher value of the two total flowarea calculated in step 14 and step 15, is then taken for subsequent calculations. 16. From the selected total flowarea, the liquid flowarea is calculated.

17. From this liquid flowarea and volumetric flowrate of liquid, final velocity of liquid in spray reactor is calculated. 18. Initial Velocity of the liquid through nozzle (calculated) and the final velocity gives the time required and from that distance traveled to acquire that final velocity is calculated. This gives the cylindrical height of the spray reactor. 19. Standard cone with 60o angle is considered. 20. From the selected total flowarea, diameter of the outlet pipe of the spray reactor is calculated. 21. The diameter of the pipe from outlet of spray reactor to inlet of separator is calculated assuming gas velocity and assuming that 66% of the total flowarea is occupied by the gas. 22. Having known diameter of the pipe, diameter of the spray reactor and angle of cone, the conical height of the reactor is calculated. Finally the total height is calculated which is the total of cylindrical and conical height. 23. Separator: The diameter of inlet pipe of Separator is same as the outlet of the spray reactor. 24. The diameter of top outlet of separator is to facilitate the gas flow and is taken to be 1 more than the inlet pipe of the gas to the spray reactor. 25. The diameter of separator is then taken to be 8 greater than the gas outlet of separator. 26. Liquid is assumed to take two turns before settling. From the velocity of the liquid and the horizontal distance traveled, time required is calculated.

27. From the time calculated, the final outlet velocity of the liquid at the bottom is calculated. Based on which the cylindrical height for the lower part is calculated. 28. The upper part of the separator (from the inlet pipe) is taken to be double than the lower part and the total height is calculated. 29. Standard cone with 60o angle is considered. 30. Liquid Outlet pipe diameter from separator is calculated from the liquid flowrate and the calculated velocity. 31. From the diameter of the separator, diameter of the outlet pipe of separator and cone angle, height of the conical part is calculated. 32. Finally the total height is calculated which is the total of cylindrical and conical height. 33. Service tank: This tank will accommodate filtered liquor for entire day, because, filtration would be conducted during day time only (either in one or two shift). So, from the total volume of liquor collected, diameter and height of the flat bottom tank is calculated. 34. Filter press: Weight of dry cake per day is calculated based on dry cake obtained per liter of pickling liquor during experimental work. 35. From the known characteristic values of the cake, initial moisture content and final moisture content, the volume of the wet cake is calculated. 36. The volume required to accommodate the wet cake and volume available in the standard filter press is compared and right size of the standard filter press is chosen. 37. Dryer: The batch fluidized bed dryer is used for operation.

38. Wet cake generated in a day can be dried in a single operation of smallest available size of batch fluidized bed dryer. 39. Calcinator: Weight and volume of the material to be calcined is calculated. Since it is less as compared to the available standard size of furnaces, for the calcination operation batch size for material produced during entire day is considered. 40. Accordingly the size of the furnace required is calculated.

Discussion on Simulation The model equations were first formulated and then simulated using programming language C. The pilot plant study has already been carried out for this process and the data used has been validated. The process involved different equipments like neutralizer, spray reactor, separator, calcinator, dryer, filter press, etc. for which the mathematical model was developed using conventional design equations. The basis for the process was taken to be 10,000 ltrs/day pickling liquor (a validated data as mentioned earlier). Taking this basis, all the necessary mathematical equations were designed for the respective equipments with suitable assumptions which are included in algorithm. The entire

process was divided into two major segments. In the first segment three equipments were considered together and in the second segment all equipments were treated as separate unit and then the mathematical equations were designed for convenience. This model was then simulated so that we can get the appropriate size of all the equipments by just entering the amount of the pickling liquor.

Conclusions The S.S Re-Rolling plants are of various capacities. The pickling liquor coming out ranges in size. The program developed and run can be used to design the plant for various output of the pickling liquor. The program was verified for different amount of pickling liquor and was found to be appropriate. The utility of this program could be immense looking at the need of the treatment plants for effluent of S.S. Re-Rolling Mills.

References 1. Desai M.G., Treatment of waste Pickling Liquor from S.S.Rolling Mill, Indian Chemical Engineer, Vol. 47/No.2,April-June,2005. 2. Desai M.G., Project Proposal Report on Iron Oxide from Waste Pickling Liquor from S.S. Re-Rolling Mills, Department of Chemical Engineering, V.G.E.C., Chandkheda.2009

List of figures 1. Process flow Diagram 2. Equipment occupancy chart.

1,2,3,4 Pickling Liquor Tanks 5 A 6 A 8 9 Neutraliser Heater Calcinator Drier 10 Treated liquor tank 5 B Spray Reactor 6 B Blower 5 C TPS-3 7 5 D Filter Press Mould Making

Fig. 1 Process Flow Diagram

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

16 Day

24

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Tank 1 Tank 2 Tank 3 Tank 4 Neutraliser / Spray Reactor /TPS-3 /Filter Press Heater & Blower Mould Making and Packing Calcination Drier

10 Treated Liquor Tank 11 Timing of General Shift

Fig. 2 Equipment Occupancy Chart