Innophos
Chicago Heights, Illinois
Intern: Rashad Nuruddin
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The Chicago Heights Innophos facility is a specialty phosphate manufacturing
company. This plant specializes in the production of sodium and calcium phosphates
with products being utilized in such industries as oral care, pharmaceutical,
and baking.
The intern project focused on opportunities to improve energy conservation,
stormwater, and wastewater discharges along with completing an inventory of
flammable cabinets throughout the operation.
Results:
The intern worked on the following projects:
- Conducted a light survey of
store room lighting, motor control center (MCC) lighting, and outdoor lighting.
The company could save $6,000 dollars by installing occupancy sensors and
photocells in several areas. The recommendations also include replacing metal
halide and T-12 lighting to T-8 lighting.
- Researched methods to reduce energy use in
vending machines. By installing VendingMiser sensor technology on vending
machines, the company could save over $500 per year.
- Conducted a flammable cabinet
survey. To decrease congestion of the cabinets, a list of acceptable cabinet
items should be placed near cabinets. Purchases of chemicals should be assigned
to one person to eliminate over-purchasing.
- Recommended the installation
of fan ventilation systems to cool MCCs and keep current AC units on reserve.
The project would have a 2 year simple payback and could save $3,800 in water
usage and $2,500 in electricity/maintenance for one MCC alone.
- Collected
data in one of the process areas and recommended the following actions:
- Replace
ductwork for dryer and blenders routed to the dust collector
- Remove blender
from the dust collector to decrease added air and moisture to the dust
collector and cool the blender/mixer with cooling water, jacket or exhaust
fan.
- Helped
locate a broken fan damper that increased process flow and decreased
product loss. Insulate dryer and #1 blender ducts.
- Install thermocouples & pressure
gauges to monitor the process better.
- Measured tank stack heat losses. This
led to the discovery of a loss over 1 million BTU per hour per tank.
It was recommended that the company install a smaller exhaust fan with
a heat trap.
- Recommended
that the company install smaller personal boilers for each process area to
limit line loss and use of over sized boiler system.
- Recommended the use
of process heat for room heating instead of natural gas.
- Researched the feasibility
of installing solar panels at the facility's State Street warehouse.
|
