Soft-sensing technologies with application to chemical waste treatment

• Main Authors: Xie, Lihua, Fang, Yue, Cai, Wenjian, Soh, Yeng Chai
• Other Authors: School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
• Format: Research Report
• Language: English
• Published: 2008
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering::Control and instrumentation
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/14170
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Under the Environmental Pollution Control Act, all chemical waste treatment industries must monitor and analyze the chemical waste effluent before discharging into the public sewer system to ensure that the waste will not contaminate the drainage system. With the implementation of Newater in Singapore, all care and precaution should be taken to ensure that the source is clean and uncontaminated. The process of analyzing and monitoring using various sensors can be tedious and time consuming for the chemical waste treatment industries. With a centralized monitoring and control system in conjunction with the present chemical processing plant, automation could be achieved which relieves the stress and task of the personnel. The project aims to develop an Intelligent and Portable Multi-Functional Machine which will form the core monitor module for the automated system as well as a waste management system (WMS). The Intelligent and Portable Multi-Functional Machine should be capable of measuring PH, Ion-selective Electrode (ISE), Oxidation-Reduction Potential (ORP), conductivity, Dissolved Oxygen (DO), heavy metal concentration, temperature，Specific Gravity (SG), and heating value. The WMS will include existing technical and historical databases for wastes and chemicals, recommendations and guidelines for the selection of treatment and disposal methods, specific notifications and suggestions for the safety and environmental impact of proper handling factors, reminding and enquiring data/information for further testing and amendment of insufficient and lacking information, and on-line database communication and sharing as well as the capability for new information learning.This report documents the research and the development work of the Intelligent and Portable Multi-Functional Machine and the WMS. It also documents the various procedures used to test the feasibility of concepts in developing the heating value sensor. The experimental testing results which are performed in a real chemical wastewater factory process show that the portable multifunctional machine can give very satisfactory performance. The WMS has been put into operations in Purechem Onyx Pte Ltd since June 2006 and has greatly improved the efficiency and productivity of the company.