ARTICLE IN PRESS

Control Engineering Practice 16 (2008) 286–293

www.elsevier.com/locate/conengprac

A PID ratio control for removal of HCl=SOX in flue gas

from refuse municipal incinerators
Ching-Hua Tinga,, Ho-Hsien Chenb, Chuan-Chia Yenc
a
Department of Biomechatronic Engineering, National Chiayi University, 300 University Road, Chiayi 600, Taiwan
b
Department of Food Science, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, 1, Shuehfu Road, Neipu, Pingtung 912, Taiwan
c
Department of Environmental Engineering, Far East Machinery Co. Ltd., 1 Industrial 1 Road, Tou Chau Industry Park, Chiayi 621, Taiwan
Received 17 October 2005; accepted 24 April 2007
Available online 12 June 2007

Abstract

This paper presents a PID-based ratio control scheme for flue gas cleaning systems (FGCSs) to remove acid emissions (SOX and HCl)
from municipal refuse incinerators. The FGCS uses a semi-dry scrubber that injects diluted hydrated lime ðCaðOHÞ2 Þ droplets to scrub
high temperature, polluted flue gas from incinerators. The development of the control scheme was initiated by treating the scrubbing
process as a grey system perceived as conceptual chemical dynamics. The scheme was implemented on a redundant programmable logic
controller (PLC) and the control parameters were tuned based on responses from commissioning operations. The scheme, never re-tuned,
has accomplished promising performance and consumable savings since its commission in the year 2000.
r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: PID control; Ratio control; Programmable logic controllers; Air pollution; Refuse incinerator

1. Introduction The generation of nitrogen oxide (NOX ) is significantly

Incineration, an established technology for over 100
years, is one of the proper solutions for disposal of
municipal solid wastes, which has the advantages of
reduction of volume and high toxicity (Freya, Peters,
Hunsinger, & Vehlow, 2003). Heat energy produced during
incineration can be recovered to electrical power. Hence, a
municipal refuse incinerator plant can be viewed as a
power plant with refuse as the fuel (Leskens, Van Kessel, &
Van den Hof, 2002). However, refuse incineration comes
with inherent problems of pollutant emissions, regardless
of the quality of incinerator design, construction and
operation. The pollutants may contain heavy metals, acid
gases (HCl, SOX , HF and NOX ) and toxic organic
compounds (e.g. dioxin), which should be removed before
exhausting to avoid severe threats to the environment. The
demand for mitigation of pollutants is normally carried out
by the so-called flue gas cleaning system (FGCS).
Corresponding author. Tel.: +886 5 2717642; fax: +886 5 2717647.
E-mail address: cting@mail.ncyu.edu.tw (C.H. Ting).
relevant to furnace operation and is generally removed by
spraying liquid ammonia (urea) into the furnace (Uchida &
Tsuchiya, 1984). Hence, this paper presents only the
problem of HCl=SOX removal control. The removal
process of acid components consists of a series of chemical
reactions between acid gases and an additive alkaline
absorbent (hydrated lime, CaðOHÞ2 ). There exists an
optimum atmospheric condition which acts as a compro-
mise between the reaction efficiency and the life span of the
equipment. The process employs a semi-dry spray scrub-
ber, in which high-temperature flue gases and atomized
lime slurry meet and react, removing the acid components.
Scrubbed flue gases are then forwarded to a particulate
eliminator, which captures reacted products and unused
lime particles, before being emitted to the environment.
The removal of SOX (desulfurization) has been inten-
sively investigated, since it is the major cause of the
formation of acid rain and fog (Kelter, Carr, & Scott,
1999). Sulfur oxides (SOX ) may be generated from fossil
power plants, vehicles, and even kitchen ovens. Reduction
of fuel consumption is one of the solutions mitigating SOX
emissions (Lin & Chang, 1996). Hydrogen chloride (HCl)

0967-0661/$ - see front matter r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.conengprac.2007.04.007
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
C.H. Ting et al. / Control Engineering Practice 16 (2008) 286–293
occupies a larger portion of acid compositions of the flue
gas from refuse incinerators (Wey et al., 2001). Though the
control scheme developed in this paper is available for
control of both HCl and SOX , only results of HCl removal
control are presented.
Canonical design of a control system requires an a priori
process model. However, such a model does not exist for
the scrubbing process, as the literature reports only on the
exploration of chemical reactions, absorbent compositions,
and removal processes. Process modelling may take up
three quarters of the total cost in the development of an
advanced control project (Hussain, 1999). Nevertheless,
when modelling for control is not based on criteria related
to the actual end use, the results can sometimes be quite
disappointing in industrial practice (Ogunnaike, 1996).
Hence, this study focused on the development of practical
control schemes, based on conceptual modelling of the
scrubbing process.
The paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, a short
introduction to the FGCS is presented. In Section 3, a
practical configuration of the acid gas removal control
scheme is explored, based on partially known chemical
reactions, i.e. conceptual modelling. The implementation
and tuning procedure is revealed. Results of the commis-
sioning operation are presented and discussed in Section 4.
Finally, conclusions are drawn in Section 5.
2. The flue gas cleaning system (FGCS)
2.1. System architecture
Fig. 1 shows the studied refuse incinerator plant which
possesses two trains of independent incineration systems.
Each system has its own mass-burn mechanical grate
Fig. 1. A single train of the refuse incinerator plant.
287
furnace, capable of handling 450 t of refuse per day, a
boiler and an economizer for energy recovery, an FGCS
for flue gas cleaning, and an induced draft fan for emission
exhaust. A 23 MW steam turbine/generator system converts
collected heat energy into electrical power. A distributed
control system (DCS, Hitachi, Japan) performs automatic
combustion control, furnace manipulation, and plant
supervision. The FGCS is controlled with a redundant
programmable logic controller (PLC) (QnA-4R, Mitsu-
bishi, Japan). The DCS coordinates and supervises the
FGCS through RS422 communication. Manipulation
and monitoring of the FGCS is carried out using DCS
consoles.
2.2. The cleaning process
The high-temperature flue gas enters a semi-dry scrubber
(SDS), where it is sprayed with diluted atomized lime slurry
ðCaðOHÞ2 Þ. The flue gas is cooled by the sprayed water, and
the acid components (mainly SOX and HCl) react with the
calcium (Ca) to form calcium sulfite or calcium sulfate. A
preparation system prepares lime slurry at a constant
concentration of 12–15% and then pumps the slurry to a
rotary atomizer located on top of the scrubber vessel. The
rotary atomizer (F100, Niro A/S, Denmark) dilutes the
lime slurry with water, atomizes the slurry into fine
droplets, and then sprays the droplets into the scrubber
vessel.
The water in the diluted lime slurry evaporates because
of the hot flue gas. A portion of the dried, unreacted lime
and its reaction product falls to the bottom of the vessel
and is removed as fly ash. The scrubbed flue gas then flows
from the bottom of the scrubber through a horizontal duct
to the bag filter house, a particulate eliminator, where the
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288 C.H. Ting et al. / Control Engineering Practice 16 (2008) 286–293

remainder of the lime and reacted products are captured. 3. Development of acid removal control scheme
Powdered activated carbon (PAC) is injected into the
house to absorb heavy metals and organic chemicals. Both 3.1. Facts of the scrubbing process
lime and PAC preparation systems are redundant and a
single module can support both FGCS trains at the same In the scrubber vessel, hot flue gas is scrubbed with
time. diluted lime slurry droplets to arrive at the appropriate
The bag filter house is equipped with a large amount of temperature and acid concentration. A complete scrubbing
fabric filter bags that can operate up to a temperature of process occurs as the result of the evaporation of water
240  C. Besides, the residual acid gases in the inflow flue vapour out of atomized droplets into high-temperature
start condensing and turning into acid condensate when the gases, and the absorption of gaseous species into droplets,
temperature reaches the dew point of the atmosphere in the with the following chemical reactions (Duo, Sevill, Kirkby,
house. Acid condensate will corrode the downstream & Clift, 1994; Uchida & Tsuchiya, 1984):
facilities including the duct, gas re-heater, induced draft
fan, and stack. Thus, the control system functions to CaðOHÞ2 þ 2HCl ¼ CaCl2 þ 2H2 O, ð1Þ
regulate the acid emission concentration as well as the CaðOHÞ2 þ SO2ð3Þ ¼ SO3ð4Þ þ H2 O. ð2Þ
temperature of the flue gas, which is a multi-input (water
The FGCS process in this plant is designed to have a
and lime slurry) multi-output (temperature and emission
stoichiometric ratio (SR) of 2.07. Theoretically, the acid
concentration) (MIMO) control problem. Acid gases are
components can be eliminated completely because of
removed mainly by the scrubbing process and partially by
excessive hydrated lime. Unfortunately, the chemical
the filter bags, where abundant CaO powder (dried,
unreacted lime) coheres to the surfaces of the fabric filter reactions of either HCl or SOX never reach 100%
efficiency. The removal efficiency is a function of process
bags (Uchida & Tsuchiya, 1984).
temperature, humidity, and residing time. The above
reactions are exothermic, and so they release heat to the
2.3. Principles of FGCS control
scrubbing process. This contributes negatively to tempera-
ture control. HCl reacts with lime more rapidly and
The PLC-based FGCS control system controls and
efficiently than SOX does. When the incoming HCl
monitors field devices. All control operations and monitor-
concentration is more than 535 ppm, the increase in
ing information can be manipulated from local control
panels or through the DCS. The FGCS control system HCl concentration decreases the SOX removal efficiency
(Weinell, Jensen, Dam-Johansen, & Liybjerg, 1992).
functions automatically over the entire range of operating
The evaporation process accounts for the motion of
conditions including the startup and shutdown of the
droplets with respect to the gas stream and heat, and the
scrubbing process. The induced draft fan inlet vanes are
mass transfer between the gas and the liquid. Hence, water
controlled by the boiler draft control system to maintain
chilling occurs mainly during this phase. The chemical
a constant draft in the boiler. The FGCS maintains
reaction phase occurs, such that the flue gas is first chilled by
stable operations under all potential gas flow variations
the water in the droplets, after which acid gases are absorbed
by draft fan regulation, and heat fluctuations by furnace
manipulation. by droplets. The total contact time is about 10 s in the
scrubber vessel, much longer than the evaporation period of
The FGCS is designed to regulate either SOX or HCl
0.2 s (Uchida & Tsuchiya, 1984). Therefore, a brief summary
emission at an allowed concentration over all operating
is drawn according to the fact that the chilling process is
conditions and load changes. The lime feed rate is
complete within about 0.2 s, and is much shorter than the
regulated in proportion to the acid gas concentration
chemical reaction process. In the interest of control
sensed by a continuous emissions monitoring system
engineering, the chilling process can be envisaged to have
(CEMS) at the scrubber inlet and the stack inlet. The feed
a responsiveness 20 times faster than the chemical reaction.
rate of the lime slurry is controlled by maintaining the
required removal efficiency as calculated using CEMS data Formulas (1) and (2) indicate that an increase in the
consumption of hydrated lime increases the possibility of
by the control scheme developed in this paper. The feed
chemical reaction. Alternately, a proper solution which
rate of powered activated carbon is manually set through
increases the removal efficiency is to increase the humidity
variable speed volumetric feeders.
and decrease the temperature in the scrubber (Chisholm &
The temperature of the flue gas in the scrubber vessel is
Rochelle, 1999; Izquierdo, Fite, Cunill, Iborra, & Tejero,
controlled to establish a most suitable atmosphere for
2000; Jozewicz, Chang, & Sedman, 1990; Klingspor,
the scrubbing process. The temperature data of the flue
Karlsson, & Bjerle, 1983; Weinell et al., 1992). Accord-
gas at either the scrubber inlet or output is obtained by
taking the median or the average of three simultaneous ingly, two conclusions can be drawn for the design of acid
gas removal control:
measurements, which could isolate faulty or unreliable
temperature transducing signals. The bag filter house is
protected by bypassing overly cooled or overheated flue (1) The increase of lime slurry increases the water content
gases. in the diluent, hence, reducing the temperature of the
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
C.H. Ting et al. / Control Engineering Practice 16 (2008) 286–293
flue gas. The chemical reaction releases heat and
increases the temperature of the flue gas.
(2) The addition of chilling water increases the interior
humidity, lowers the temperature, and leads to a higher
acid gas removal efficiency.
Control loops of chemical processes always exhibit integral
action associated with a long transport lag (Chien, Peng, &
Liu, 2002). The scrubbing process is thus represented with
the form:
G P ðsÞ ¼ GðsÞ  esT delay ,
where G P ðsÞ is the process model, GðsÞ describes the implicit
integral action, and T delay is the transport lag of the
process. This modelling approach is especially applicable to
the acid removal process, as it takes place in the scrubber
vessel, but the response is not measured until a long-
distance journey occurs through the bag filter house and
the after-duct. Thus, the temperature control loop may be
simply described with first order or integral dynamics,
while the acid removal process is a complex chemical
reaction with unclear dynamics.
3.2. The temperature control loop
The simplest model possible, without sacrificing relia-
bility, for the chilling process is to lump the processes,
together with a transport lag, into a first-order system
(Chien et al., 2002), as
K chill sT chill
G chill ðsÞ ¼ e
sþt
with K chill the system gain, t the time constant, and T chill
the transport lag. This model takes chilling water uW as
input. Identification of the above model coefficients was
not allowed on the studied plant. This generic form for
modelling a temperature control process is well recognized.
The chilling model indicates that the chilling process
exhibits characteristics of linear dynamics. Factors that
may influence the chilling process include the chilling
water, the water contained in the lime slurry, and the heat
released from the chemical reaction between acid gases and
the lime. These processes are represented with a block
diagram, as shown in the ‘‘direct cooling’’ loop of Fig. 2.
Fig. 2. Conceptual modelling of the chilling process from inputs to
output.
289
A temperature controller is expected to exert adequate
amounts of chilling water uW to maintain the inside
temperature ychill , at 10–15  C above the dew temperature.
In this plant, the lime slurry concentration is maintained at
a concentration of 12–15%. Hence, slurry supply adds
extra water to the output of the temperature controller.
This added water should be deducted from the water
control command uW . This deduction is carried out
through a weighing coefficient kAW that accounts for the
consumption of lime slurry uA . The exothermic chemical
reactions of Formulas (1) and (2) release heat energy to the
(3)
scrubber. This exothermic process, lumped as G heat ðsÞ in
Fig. 2, can be treated as a load disturbance in the system
output. The exothermic heat depends on the mass flow rate
of flue gas, which fluctuates and is unlikely to be identified
accurately. Fortunately, exothermic load disturbance could
be easily alleviated by feedback control. The exothermic
disturbance is considered trivial in comparison with the
heat carried out by the latent heat absorbed in water
vaporization.
3.3. The acid removal control loop
Since the literature does not provide useful models for
control design, the acid removal process is therefore
described with an abstract model of the form:
yA ¼ f ðf; T; uA ; tÞ  esT A (5)
with f being the humidity inside the scrubber, T the inside
temperature, and T A accounting for the transport lag from
(4) the scrubber to the stack. Function f ðÞ is an unknown
transformation which lumps contributions of humidity,
temperature, and lime slurry within the scrubber and the
bag filter house. The removal process is considered too
complicated to be identified explicitly based on current
existing information. Thus, control is designed based on
the abstract model. The process is conceptualized with a
block diagram as shown in Fig. 3.
Humidity f and temperature T are actually regulated by
the chilling water. Unlike the chilling process, contribu-
tions from humidity and temperature to the removal
process are not simply linear in dynamics. Both the inside
humidity and the temperature are actually a result of the
use of chilling water. Hence, this exogenous influence in
process dynamics is transcribed with a scaling factor
accounting for the opening of the slurry valve. Thus, it
would be intuitive to summarize that an increase in the
consumption of chilling water promotes removal efficiency.
As mentioned, the chemical process is more reactive in a
humid, low-temperature atmosphere. Hence, it is intuitive
uL T yA
SDS BFH DUCT CEMS
φ
Fig. 3. Conceptual modelling of the acid removal process.
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that less lime slurry is demanded in response to the
consumption of chilling water. However, more water
consumption means that the incoming flue gas has a
bulkier volume and a higher temperature. This is a
competing problem, which, in turn, increases the con-
sumption of the lime slurry as a result of more acid
components to be removed. The chemical reaction process
indicates that more lime slurry will increase the removal
efficiency, but with the penalty of lime consumption. This
fact is applicable to HCl removal (Jozewicz et al., 1990;
Weinell et al., 1992) and to SO2 removal (Klingspor et al.,
1983; Izquierdo et al., 2000). Based on this concept and
previous experience with commissioning tests, the acid
removal process is finally evolved, as shown in Fig. 4. The
scaling coefficient kWL describes the positive contribution
of the chilling water to acid removal.
uW
kWL
uA uL Slurry
x SDS+BFH
Valve
CEMS
Fig. 4. The acid removal process is positively affected by chilling water.
3.4. The control algorithms
There are numerous existing successful applications of PID
control to non-linear processes with descriptions of simple
first-order models (Hjalmarsson, 2005). The PLC (QnA-4R,
Mitsubishi, Japan) is the hardware available in implementa-
tion of the control algorithm. Hence, a digital, incremental
PID control algorithm of the following form is used:
Du½k ¼ K P ðe½k  e½k  1Þ þ K I e½k
þ K D ðe½k  2e½k  1 þ e½k  2Þ, ð6Þ
u½k ¼ u½k þ Du½k  1, (7)
where e is system error, index k denotes discrete time, and
K P , K I and K D are lumped PID control parameters. A
PID-based ratio control structure is developed, by combin-
ing the two independent control loops of Figs. 2 and 4, as
shown in Fig. 5.
The control scheme for temperature regulation is thus:
DuW ðtÞ ¼ DuT ðtÞ þ kAW DuA ðtÞ þ kFT DxT ðtÞ (8)
with xT the flue gas temperature at the scrubber inlet, D ¼
ð1  z1 Þ a difference operator, and kFT a feed-forward
compensation coefficient to be tuned. The difference
operator accounts for changes of load. The water regula-
tion command for temperature control is
yA
uW ½k ¼ uW ½k  1 þ DuW ½k. (9)
The acid removal efficiency is proportional to the humidity
and inversely proportional to the temperature of the flue
gas being scrubbed. Thus, the addition of water increases
the acid gas removal efficiency. The de-acid contribution
from water addition is simplified with an additive
coefficient kWL , as
uL ðtÞ ¼ uA ðtÞ  kWL uW ðtÞ. (10)

xT
SDS Inlet kFTΔ
Temperature

LPFT Thermo-
couple

- ΔuT + ΔuW yT
wT + eT 1 uW Water
Σ ΔPID Σ SDS
1-z-1 Valve
-
Temperature Control
kWL
kAWΔ
LPFWL
Acid Control
wA eA uA uL Slurry yA
Σ PID x SDS+BFH
+ Valve
-

LPFA CEMS

Fig. 5. The control block diagram. PID: PID control; LPF: low pass filter.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
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The control laws (8) and (10) can be considered as ratio
controls, which are widely used in chemical processes
described with the model (4) (Visioli, 2005). The ratios can
retain the desired performance during a steady-state
operation, but may fail during transients (Hägglund,
2001). In the scrubbing process, the consumption of water
is far more than that of the lime slurry. In other words, the
fluctuation of lime slurry consumption is trivial in terms of
water control, but the reverse situation would be signifi-
cant. To alleviate side effects from the transients of
temperature controls, a low pass filter (LPF) is introduced
to smooth the coupling ratio kWL . Hence, the control law
of Eq. (10) is furthered to:
1b
uL ðtÞ ¼ uA ðtÞ  kWL uW ðtÞ.
1  bz1
The presence of the LPF stems from the fact that the
temperature process exists only in the scrubber, but the
chemical process exists in the scrubber as well as in the bag
filter house. This means that in nature, that the chemical
process has a response time longer than the temperature
process. Since lime slurry is consumed far less than wash
water, the LPF reduces the change rate of lime slurry in
response to water regulation.
The integrated control structure treats the temperature
process and the acid removal process as two decoupled
grey systems. Each process is mutually coupled by the
connecting coefficients and necessary functions. The
control loops are simple to implement. In this study, the
controls were implemented on the PLC with a control
sampling rate of 3 s, which was proven to be effective
without sacrifice of cost and performance.
4. Results of commissioning operations
The municipal solid waste in Taiwan contains abundant
polyvinyl chloride (PVC) products and salt (sodium
chloride, NaCl) in the food trash. The former contributes
to the generation of HCl emission during the thermal
process, while the latter provides a source of combustion.
The literature indicates that incineration of PVC residues
produces much more HCl than incineration of NaCl
residues (Wey et al., 2001). These two sources significantly
contribute to HCl emissions of flue gas. Additionally, the
Table 1
Owner’s specifications and builder’s guarantees on acid control of the FGCS
Guarantees
Allowable flue gas temperature at economizer outlet
Allowable HCl concentration at economizer outlet
Allowable SOX concentration at economizer outlet
Controlled HCl emission at stack outlet
Controlled SOX emission at stack outlet
Minimum HCl removal efficiency
Minimum SOX removal efficiency
Maximum CaðOHÞ2 consumption rate (@LHV2200 kcal/kg & 18.75 t/h refuse feed rate)
291
removal efficiency of SO2 by scrubbing is only 48.8–73.5%,
but may reach over 90% after treatment through the fabric
bag filter house (Chiang, Wey, & Yeh, 2003; Scala,
Ascenzo, & Lancia, 2004). Tentative operations indicate
that the incinerator has a denser HCl emission than SO2 .
Thus, only responses of HCl to removal control are
presented in this paper.
Measurements of flue emissions were vulnerable to noise
contamination, as the CEMS readings are in parts per
million (ppm). This makes the derivative (D) control term
useless and risky in terms of system stability and noise
rejection. In ratio controlled architecture with process
dynamics of Eq. (4) simple PI controls are sufficient for
arriving at satisfactory performance (Visioli, 2005). Hence,
(11) the derivative term was disarmed during the whole course
of the system operation. There is no a priori information
available about the PID parameters, as clear knowledge
about the cleaning process model is unavailable. Hence, the
PID control parameters were tuned by real-time incin-
erator operations with system responses recorded using
DCS supervisory consoles.
Parameters changed were written to the redundant PLC
online and, therefore, system operation was never interrupted.
All the logic and process controls were implemented with PLC
ladder diagrams. Table 1 shows owner’s specifications and
guarantees that the control system should accomplish this.
Figs. 6 and 7 record seven consecutive hours of system
responses logged with the assistance of a DCS supervisory
console. In the period, the incinerator might have
experienced different operation conditions, such as refuse
feeding, fluctuating heat value, excessive/insufficient com-
bustion air, insufficient diluting water, and unstable lime
slurry concentration. The response of temperature is
relatively stable, as is always true near the setpoint.
The responses of temperature control shown in Fig. 6
demonstrates a very good setpoint tracking performance.
The temperature profile at the SDS inlet fluctuated from
time to time. This fluctuation reflects the fact that refuse
dumped into the furnace was not in continuous mode, but
in batch mode. This fact is also revealed by the profile of
the water valve opening. The response of temperature
control is relatively good, although the control action
varied abruptly. The ability of the system to carry out load
disturbance rejection allows the operator to lower the
Unit Specification Design

C 200–300 135–300
ppm 1200 1200
ppm 200 200
ppm 25 25
ppm 30 30
% 90 90
% 70 70
kg/t refuse – 32
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292 C.H. Ting et al. / Control Engineering Practice 16 (2008) 286–293

Fig. 6. Responses of temperature control in commissioning operation.

Fig. 7. Responses of HCl control in commissioning operation.

scrubbing temperature, thereby increasing the efficiency of Table 2

the chemical reaction in the scrubber. Statistics of daily operation (from DCS collection)
In Fig. 7, the HCl emission was reduced from 380 to Statistics Unit Line 1 Line 2
6.9 ppm. This results in a removal efficiency of 97%.
Though the incoming flue gas contained abundant HCl Refuse incinerated t/d 445.937 444.712
emission, the concentration of the flue gas exhausted to the Average heat value kcal/kg 1974 1930
Average flue gas flow k N m3 =h 80.8 88.7
environment was always kept around the setpoint. There
Maximum HCl emission ppm 22.5 21.9
were some fluctuations in the HCl response. The fluctua- Maximum SO2 emission ppm 3.8 3.3
tions are acceptable, as they represent the average Lime consumption t/d 3.9
concentration of significant emission, instead of the Lime consumption kg/t refuse 4.379
instantaneous response. The slurry valve was regulated
by a much more sluggish form in comparison with the
water valve. This effect originates from the action of the
coupling low pass filter LPFWL , as shown in Fig. 5. 5. Conclusions
Table 2 presents statistics of a daily operation. The
performance in terms of lime consumption is quite The plant-wide and acid removal controls were designed
promising, since the actual is only 4.379 kg/t of refuse, with the aim of safe operation, to maintain an economic
much lower than the guaranteed value by the FGCS consumable, and to meet the required emission concentra-
builder. The SOX emission is removed almost completely. tion. These are the generic requirements of process controls
The maximum hourly SOX emissions from trains 1 and 2 (Ogunnaike, 1996). A modified ratio control structure for
are only 3.8 and 3.3 ppm, respectively. This result coincides removal of the acid compounds in flue gas from an
with the ability of incoming HCl at 236 ppm to promote incinerator has been developed in this paper. The control
the removal efficiency of SOX by CaðOHÞ2 , as the literature loops were developed through integrated collaboration
reported (Duo et al., 1994; Izquierdo et al., 2000). with the FGCS process by investigating the concept of the
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
C.H. Ting et al. / Control Engineering Practice 16 (2008) 286–293
chemical reactions in the scrubber vessel. The control
structure is easy to implement as it is based on the use of
classical incremental PID control, so that it can be well
understood by operators and retain their know-how. Both
the control structure and parameters were tailored and
implemented on a redundant PLC system. The control
system requires no revisiting, since its commissioning in the
year 2000. Results did show its effectiveness and reliability
in temperature regulation and acid removal for flue gas
from refuse incinerators.
Acknowledgement
The authors are grateful to the support of the numerous
engineers in the project: ABB Alsthom on the FGCS
processes, Hitachi on the DCS, KHI on the incinerators,
and CTCI for supervising the engineering.
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