TESTO and QUALICAL co-develop an industrial grade system to control combustion and flue gas in lime kilns
The importance of analyzing flue gas in lime kilns highlighted the need to develop an industrial grade system able to satisfy the requirements of strength, reliability and accuracy under actual operating conditions.
Testo SE & Co. KGaA and Qualical combined their skills to realize a system that mainly consists of an integrated flue gas analyzer in an ABACO BOX. The latter is a tailor-made box that is able to semi-continuously manage the measurements performed in the exhaust gas.
The challenge.
Since lime production is an energy-intensive process, it shall be monitored in terms of exhaust gas, and optimized in terms of efficiency.
Qualical has developed an important platform called MOSAICO consisting of a number of applications, such as ABACO (Advanced Burning Analysis and Combustion Optimization), which serves to collect, monitor, and analyze combustion efficiency with the aim to provide an indicator for its optimization.
One critical component of the monitoring system is the flue gas analyzer which, besides being sharp and able to analyze various parameters (O2, CO, NO, NO2, SO2), shall also be reliable and sturdy in order to be used outdoor and for continuous measurements.
The solution.
Through the cooperation between the two multinational companies Qualical and Testo, it was possible to develop the ABACO BOX, which includes the flue gas analyzer for industrial applications testo 350.
The testo 350 portable measuring instrument consists of three main components: control unit, analyzer box and sampling probe.
With the removable control unit, measurements can be programmed and displayed. The measured values are clearly shown on the color graphic display, so that the measured parameters and their trend can be checked at any time. The industrial Bluetooth has a range of up to 100 m, allowing measurements to be transferred between the analyzer box and the control unit.
In addition to basic O2 e CO measurements, the analyzer box can be configured to measure NOx (NO + NO2) and SO2, as well as CO2 with NDIR technology, in order to verify the quality of the process in all respects. The instrument is equipped with the Peltier cell gas conditioning module so that the concentration values can be referred to the dry gas and be compliant with an official measurement.
The industrial sampling probe can be equipped with a thermocouple for temperatures up to 1200 °C and a sintered preliminary filter for measurements also in process points with high airborne dust concentrations.
If you operate the system in semi-continuous mode, the available digital input may be useful for remote control of the measuring cycles. This mode allows you to activate the measuring and recording program only when required by the process, thereby saving memory and extending the operating life of the electrochemical sensors.
