Customer case:

Stora Enso Anjalankoski: On-line measurement with laboratory accuracy

Jan 8, 2016

The Anjalankoski Mill area is home to two of Stora Enso's production units, the Anjala Paper Mill, as well as the Inkeroinen Board Mill. Cooperative efforts between the mills cover raw materials, energy and power generation, as well as waste water treatment and resultant sludge drying and firing. The Anjala paper mill together with the wastewater treatment plant has a long history of equipment supplied by Valmet *) measuring sludge prior to drying and solids content of reject water. Earlier, the only possible reliable measurements were tedious laboratory tests unsuitable for real-time process control.

Inkeroinen Board’s production capacity is 245 000 tons and the Anjala paper mill, 435,000 tons per year. They share a joint effluent treatment plant, seen to the right of the picture.

*) product and company names changed from Metso to Valmet. Valmet acquired Metso’s Process Automation System business and products on April 1st 2015.

The results have been compared to laboratory tests and match them perfectly. The transmitters are reliable and do not require much maintenance. I wonder how, for example the primary clarifier could be run efficiently without such a measurement?"
Pertti Rongas, Department Manager

Summary

Location The Anjalankoski mill area, Finland
Customer challenge The specific need of the Anjalankoski mills was to get real-time information on flows from clarifiers and to sludge dewatering, as well reject water solids content from the belt press filter.
Solution

Valmet TS (Total Solids) *) transmitters measure the time of flight of a microwave signal through the sludge. Time of flight is dependent on the permittivity of the slurry which for organic substances is practically constant, whereas the permittivity of water is considerably different. The measured change in permittivity allows an accurate calculation of the total solids content in the slurry. The measured slurry consistency varies normally from 2 to 3 per cent.

The Valmet LS (Low Solids) *) - measuring system is designed to measure very low, 0 - 5000 mg/liter, solids content. The device utilizes two light sources in a sample measurement cell where absorption, scattering and depolarization signals are measured. The system also deaerates and filters the sample as well as self-cleaning the measurement optics at regular intervals.

Results

The results have been compared to laboratory tests and match them perfectly. The transmitters are reliable and do not require much maintenance.

The LS-system helps avoid excessive solids content in the belt press reject water which would normally circulate unnecessarily over and over again through the plant. The online measurement allows accurate monitoring and the current target is to keep the solids content to less than 350 mg/liter, whereas earlier it was much higher.