Major Water Savings in Dairy Operations White Paper

double-seat mixproof valves

Alfa Laval describes a better way to clean double-seat mixproof valves and reduce water and CIP liquid consumption even further. This involves quick and repetitive opening and closing of the seat, rather than exposing valve surfaces to CIP liquid ow for a given duration of time. This discovery was made at one of Alfa Laval’s process facilities. Alfa Laval engineers observed that, during the first fractions of a second of a cleaning cycle, the ow of CIP liquid created a high level of shear stress on the valve surfaces used less water than traditional seat lift and seat push cleaning, and increased overall cleaning efficiency. 

Read more, or download the white paper below.

Composite Solenoid Valves for Reverse Osmosis Water Systems

reverse osmosis system
Typical reverse osmosis system
(courtesy of Wikipedia)
Reverse osmosis (RO) is one of the most popular methods for effective water purification. It has been used for years to purify contaminated water, including converting brackish or seawater to drinking water.

Reverse osmosis is a process in which dissolved inorganic solids (such as salts) are removed from a solution (such as water). This is accomplished by pushing the water through a semi permeable membrane, which allows only the water to pass, but not the impurities or contaminates.

Reverse Osmosis can deliver bottled-water quality safety and taste by removing over 99% of dissolved minerals, chlorine and contaminants. Many leading bottled-water companies actually use large-scale RO to produce their water.

Reverse osmosis systems are found in several drinking water applications from restaurant, food and beverage equipment to grocery store produce misting.

The ASCO Series 212 solenoid valve is designed for these type systems. The valves come with NSF approvals for use in drinking water systems and also is design with unique “FasN” quick connection system. The valves are designed to handle 150 psi up to 180 deg. F. and has low wattage coils in both AC and DC.

See the video below for an illustration of where these valves are used in RO systems.

Siemens SITRANS LUT400 Pump Level Assist Routines

Siemens SITRANS LUT400
Siemens SITRANS LUT400

The Siemens SITRANS LUT400 series controllers are compact, single point, long-range ultrasonic controllers for continuous level, or volume measurement of liquids, slurries, and solids, and high accuracy monitoring of open channel flow.

The preconfigured pump routines in the SITRANS LUT 400 allow you to choose the best pump control scenario for your application. In the video below, you will see how the assist pump routines work.

The SITRANS LUT 400 has three assists pump routines available:
  • Alternate duty assist
  • Service ratio duty assist
  • Fixed duty assist
The fixed duty assist routine mainly uses one pump to control the liquid level. In this example, pump 1 will always start before pump 2. When the liquid level reaches the pump 1 “on” set point, pump one will turn on. If the liquid level continues to rise while pump one is running, then pump 2 will start. Pump 2 will assist pump 1 to lower the liquid level. Both pumps we'll turn off when the liquid level reaches the “off” set point. This pump sequence is fixed. Pump 1 will always start first, then if necessary, pump 2 will assist pump 1.

The alternate duty assist routine rotates between both pumps to control the liquid level. Pump 1 will start first. If it cannot keep up with the inflow, then pump 2 will turn on and assist pump 1. Both pumps will run until the liquid level reaches the pump “off” set point. On the next cycle, pump 2 will be the first pump to start. Pump 1 will assist pump 2 if it is necessary. The starting pump will continue to alternate between pump 1 and pump 2 after each filling cycle.

The service ratio duty assist routine rotates between both pumps based on the defined service ratio. In this example the service ratio is split equally between both pumps. The SITRANS LUT will choose which pump starts first based on this ratio. Since pump 1 has the lowest runtime hours it starts first. Pump 2 will assist pump 1 if the level continues to increase.  On the next cycle, pump 2 to will start first. Pump 1 will assist pump 2 if necessary. The service duty ratio assist routine will continue to maintain the runtime ratio for each filling cycle.


The Basics of Continuous Emissions Monitoring (CES)

Continuous emission monitoring
Continuous emission monitoring system
(courtesy of AMETEK Process Instruments)
Continuous emission monitoring systems, known as CEMs, are used by plants and facilities to assure compliance with the EPA’s requirement to limit the amount of certain gasses (such as CO2) into the air. A CEM samples, measures, collects data, records and reports the gas emissions information. CEM systems can also measure and report gas flow, gas opacity and moisture content.

CEMs are typically used to monitor flue gas emissions (the gas exiting to the atmosphere via a flue from an furnace, oven, or boiler).

CEM system are made up of a sampling probe, a filter, a sampling line, a means to condition the gas being sampled, a gas used for calibration, and a group of gas analyzers geared toward the gases being monitored.

The most common gases measured are: carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, airborne particulate, sulfur dioxide, volatile organics, mercury, nitrogen oxides, hydrogen chloride, and oxygen.

Continuous emission monitoring systems operate by extracting a small diluted gas sample into the CEM via a sampling probe. The sample is diluted with air because of the hot, wet, and contaminant carrying nature of the stack gas. Once the sample gas is taken, the concentration of its components are calculated through a variety of technologies such as infrared and ultraviolet adsorption, chemiluminescence, fluorescence and beta ray absorption. After analysis, the sample gas exits the analyzer and is usually vented outdoors.

Another method of extracting a sample gas is called "hot dry" extraction or "direct CEMs". In this situation, the sample gas is not diluted with air, but instead the pure sample is carried through a heated line at high temperatures, filtered to remove contaminants, and dried to remove moisture. This method is preferred when O2 measurement is required because there is no additional oxygen being introduced via the air dilution as described in the above method.

The EPA requires a data acquisition and handling system to collect and report the data, so the CEM must operate continually and provide data on an hourly basis.

For more information about CEM systems, contact:

Ives Equipment Corporation
www.ivesequipment.com
(877) 768-1600