Unitop: Caustic recovery plant for mercerizing machines ideal for profitable working of textile dyeing and finishing

mill
Unitop Aquacare have been active in textile industry since last 38 years and have brought many innovations in the field of Evaporation Engineering and Heat Recovery Systems with more than 170 evaporation plants world wide. According to Andreas Mondry, Advisor for International Sales and Marketing of Unitop, Our efforts are always to make the plant highly energy efficient and with discharge of Low pH Effluent. We offer customized Caustic Recovery Plants to suit the individual requirement and one can also select the equipment from our standardized range to optimize plant design with respect to consumption of steam, power, water and guarantee excellent yields without degeneration of quality. Unitop Aquacare customers are mostly from India and other countries such as Sri Lanka, Nigeria, South Africa, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia. References from India include Empire Dyeing, Bombay Dyeing, Coats, GTN, K G Denim, Morarjee, Raymond, Premier, Ramkumar, Hanung, Amaravathi, Centuri, Mandhana. Mondry adds, These orders are not repeated just once, twice but even thrice We get totally involved with the customer and this is reflected in our efforts. For example, we have specially designed computer based operators training programs and we also undertake annual maintenance / operation and maintenance contracts. Need of caustic recovery Mercerizing plants in textile mills are used to mercerize desized / scoured / bleached / dyed yarn / knitted fabrics. Depending on the design of Mercerizing machine, they generate substantial quantity of diluted caustic liquor - wash liquor of concentration of about 20 - 60 gpl, containing various impurities. If drained to effluent treatment plant, it creates substantial loss of caustic soda and also severe problems in meeting the environmental standards. Caustic Recovery Plant concentrates wash liquor and allows recycling of Caustic Soda Lye to mercerizing machine and also recovers water for reuse, therefore, the caustic recovery plants contribute to the profitable running of the finishing mill. How caustic is recovered? Weak liquor containing caustic at low concentration is heated to its boiling point with the help of heat source like steam, thermic oil or even waste heat. The boiling liquid is flashed at lower pressure / temperature and the vapors so generated are re used in the next stage. By repeating this process in multiple stages, water from weak liquor is evaporated to achieve product with caustic concentration at 250 to 350 gpl and in case of dry cloth merceriser at 400 - 450 gpl in case of wet cloth merceriser. The final concentration is selected to eliminate the possibility of excess weak lye overflow. Unitop caustic recovery Unitop Aquacare offers Caustic Recovery Plant technology, and depending on the process conditions, they design proper circuitry to deal with corrosion conditions. Unitop designs tailor made systems to suit individual customers needs and the local conditions like fuel prices, quality of water and even the space constraints. The company reports lowest steam consumption due to their unique steam saving innovation, which improves the steam economy to as high as 6.5 kg evapn/kg of steam. This is possible as Unitop offers a provision of optimum number of stages, multi-stage condensate flashing system, feed pre-heating system and when needed thermo compressor (TVR). The steam consumption is 20% 30% lower than other manufacturers. The condensate quality is improved by means of demisters provided in flash vessels to ensure good quality of condensate with pH in the range of 7 - 8, resulting in minimum loss of caustic through condensate and complies with pollution control standard. Another important feature is flexility in plant design. The plant can generate hot water at such temperature, that all of the heat is utilized. Whereas, generation of hot water can recover the cost of steam supplied to evaporation plant, making caustic recovery virtually free. In case, hot water generated cannot be consumed, Unitop has another option, where Adiabatic Evaporator utilises the exhaust vapor from the last stage, which reduces steam consumption significantly. The proper selection of pumps to maintain high pumping efficiency results in moderate power consumption. Similarly, as moving parts of the plant are only pumps, the maintenance costs are merely 2-3% of the total project cost. Furthermore, plants are compact, with low head room requirement. All operations can be performed from ground level and thus plant can be fitted inside or above the processing house. Last, but not the least, the entire plant operation is automated and hence the plant can be monitored and controlled by a single person. Unitop also offers advanced plants equipped with level, density, pH controllers along with safety modules and PLC controlled operations with DAS/SCADA and also trouble shooting modules - another first from UNITOP. At the forthcoming IGATEX exhibition in Lahore the visitors can contact Nazer & Company or meet Andreas Mondry, Advisor for International Sales and Marketing of Unitop to obtain further information regarding Unitop caustic recovery plants.

Dyeing Printing Finishing

Block diagram: Caustic recovery plant.

46 PTJ October 2010