Monitoring of gypsum crystal slurry

Motivation

For every ton of produced phosphoric acid the process produces >2.3 tons of gypsum (calcium sulfate dihydrate) byproduct, which must be separated from the product solution. Separation efficiency of gypsum crystals limits the production capacity. The morphological properties of crystals greatly affect the separation efficiency.

Implementation

In the process, the concentration of the Gypsum crystals is very high. Thus the Pixact Crystallization Monitoring system (PCM) is equipped with automatic sampling and dilution to dilute the slurry to optimal measurement concentration. PCM system is used to measure crystal size every 10 minutes directly from the production process.

Benefits

Real-time information of the crystal morphology enables fast reaction on process disturbances.

Process parameters