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Production areas AT methyl ester plants, consisting of three production areas for oil extraction, transesterification and esterification, can be flexibly and modularly adapted to various production sizes ranging from 30,000 – 500,000 tons per year affording profitable operations. Technical Animations:
Oil extraction from oil seeds The vegetable raw materials are intermediately stored in storage silos after they have been pre-cleaned, dried and aspirated. A time frame of 5 to 6 days should be scheduled for intermediate storage. An internal quality control for water content and chaff should be performed during receipt and later in the process on a regular basis. From the storage silos, the oleaginous fruit travels via a metering device to the press preparation unit where a controlled separation and flaking takes place. The oleaginous fruit is then pressed out via a screw extrusion press. Optional, a warming pan can be used for a so-called warm-pressing process. The residual oil content in the press cake amounts to approximately 7% using warm-pressing method and 12% when cold pressed. After the entirely automated filtration process, the crude oil can be directly transesterified without any additional refining procedures needed. In general, the patented AT procedures for transesterification contain an integrated refining process. The press cake then is cooled down and stored in ventilated silo cells. The cake can be ground before it is loaded on to a truck. Due to its high oil content – produced in a hexane-free process – the resulting press cake is considered a high-quality protein feed.The transesterification of the vegetable oil is conducted at room temperature under normal pressure by adding methanol and small quantities of a catalyst (potassium hydroxide). Two transesterification and two sedimentation stages are sufficient to reach a complete conversion. The separation of the sediment diluted glycerine phase is simply conducted by pumping it off without any complex separator systems. Optimized by AT, the subsequent cleaning steps such as washing and drying (distillation) guarantee a biodiesel quality in accordance with DIN EN 14214. The system control is equipped with the latest technology. A link to internal and external bus systems, which has been implemented very successfully by AT as one of the first users ever, ensures high flexibility. The complete system control is designed and implemented by AT’s systems technology. A programmable controller model SIMATIC® S7 (SIEMENS), which has been designed for middle and high performance areas, is used to operate the system controls. Its modular and fan-less design, high expandability capabilities, along with its robustness and user-friendly operation, offers an optimal solution for highest automation requirements. For visualisation, the respectively most current version of SIMATIC® WinCC comes into operation. SIMATIC® WinCC is a PC-based operating and monitoring system, running on Windows 2000 / XP®. In addition, personnel costs for operating the production can be dramatically reduced by this automation. |
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