METHOD OF AND APPARATUS FOR DOSING A MATERIAL

Abstract: An additive 15 from a supply tank 16 is pumped along line 18 into the feed line 8 for boiler feed water which has passed a flow rate sensor 5 and a temperature sensor 6. A dosing con­ troller 9 controls the rate of introduction resulting from opera­ tion of the dosing pump 14, in direct proportion to the signal from the flow rate sensor 6 and in inverse proportion to the sig­ nal from the temperature sensor 6.

Description: METHOD OF AND APPARATUS FOR DOSING A MATERIAL The present invention relates to dosing a material with at least one additive, in which the amount of additive introduced into the material is dependent upon at least two parameters of the material. It is known, for example in the field of dosing a liquid with additives, to introduce the additives at a rate corresponding to the flow rate of the water through the dosing means, whereby a given proportion of the additive in the water is achieved. Such systems are disclosed in US Patents Nos.4246969, 4324294 and 3642171. It is also known to add corrosion-inhibiting additives to boiler water in response to a measured parameter of the existing water in the boiler, for example the addition may be responsive to the solution potential, as in the engine cooling system conditioning unit disclosed in US Patent 4338959 or to the conductivity as disclosed in the US Patent 3428557 relating to a boiler water conditioning system. However we believe that for economy of use of the additive it is preferable to reduce this precisely controlled amount of additive in inverse proportion to the temperature of the water, since the propensity of the water to oxidize its environment, for example the interior of a boiler, is directly dependent on. the oxygen content of the water and it has been found that the oxygen content reduces as the water temperature increases. This temperature dependence is particularly important in the field of dosing boiler water with corrosion inhibiting agents. Temperature responsive dosing units are known, for example from US Patent No.3804297, but only in the context of introducing an additive in response to the quantity of a liquid to be dosed, and adding heat in response to the temperature of the-mixture. Accordingly, one aspect of the present -invention provides a dosing controller including means generating an output signal for controlling a dosing pump to supply at least one additive for dosing a material, first means responsive to the rate of movement of the material past a sensing station, and second means responsive to the temperature-or oxygen content of the material passing through the sensing station, the controller including summing means to vary said output signal for controlling the operation of the dosing pump in response to both the temperature or oxygen content and said rate of movement of the material. A second aspect of the present invention provides a method of dosing material with at least one additive, comprising sensing the rate of movement of the material past a sensing station, sensing the temperature or oxygen content of the material passing said sensing station, introducing at least one additive into the material and automatically generating a control signal to control operation of said additive introduction step in response to both the measured rate of movement of the material through the sensing station and the measured temperature or oxygen content of the material. In order that the present invention may more readily be understood the following description is given, merely by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings in which: Figure 1 shows a schematic view of a dosing installation incorporating the controller in accordance with the present invention; and Figure 2 shows a schematic view of the dosing controller used with the dosing installation of Figure 1. The dosing installation shown in Figure 1 comprises a supply tank 1, in this case of water intended to be fed to a boiler, the supply tank being topped-up from a line 2 by virtue of a flow-responsive shut-off valve 3. Flow of the water from the tank 1 is throttled by a valve 4 and then passes successively through a flow rate sensor 5 and a temperature sensor 6, in this case a thermistor, on its way to a feed pump 7 which impells the water along a delivery line 8 towards a boiler (not shown). A dosing controller 9 is connected to the flow rate sensor 5 by way of a control line 10 and to the temperature sensor 6 by virtue of a control line 11, and is energised by power from a supply conductor 12. A control signal is transmitted from the controller 9 by way of a control line 13 to a dosing pump 14 which draws additive 15 from a tank 16 by way of a flow-adjusting throttle valve 17. The delivery from the pump 14 passes along a line 18 towards a dosing location 19 where the additive from tank 16 enters the flow of water from tank 1 and passes through the pump 7 and, in the direction of arrow 20, towards the boiler (not shown). If desired, dosing location 19 can be upstream of, or at the location of, the dosing controller 9. Figure 2 shows schematically one embodiment of the dosing controller 9 as comprising inlet line 10 to a first signal processor 21 and inlet line 11 to a second signal processor 22. The two signal processors 21 and 22 have their outputs connected to a summing means 23 which delivers to the outlet control line 13 a signal indicative of the algebraic sum of the two input signals on lines 10 and 11. In this particular embodiment, the amount of additive required is directly proportional to the rate of flow of the water past the sensing station comprising flow sensor 5 and temperature sensor 6 and thus the output from signal processing unit 21 is directly-proportional to the feed signal from the flow sensor 5. Likewise, because the aim of the additive 15 is to reduce the likelihood of oxidation in the boiler (not shown) and because the amount of oxygen known to be dissolved in water reduces as the temperature increases, the amount of additive required will also decrease with increasing temperature and thus the output signal from the signal processing unit 22 to the summing means 23 is inversely proportional to the input signal on line 11. The particular form of controller 9, shown in Figure 2 is of the analog type and the digital output of the flow rate sensor 5 is converted to analog by a converter, not shown. A digital controller could, instead, be provided if there is an A-D converter on the input line 11 to the controller 9 and possibly also a similar converter on line 10 if an analog output flow rate sensor 5 is used. A D-A converter is then needed somewhere in the control line 13 between the summing means 23 and the pump 14. If desired, the summing means 23 may be a micro-processor. In a typical boiler feed water dosing system, both the temperature or oxygen content and the flow rate of the feed water will vary according to the boiler steaming load, and to the volume of condensate being returned to the tank 1 at any time. The variables required in order to maintain correct chemical treatment of the feed water are such that the amount of chemical additive should be increased as the feed water flow increases (thanks to the signal processing unit 21 supplied by line 10 from temperature sensor 5) and equally the amount of chemical additive should be decreased in proportion to increase in temperature, or consequent decrease in oxygen content, of the feed water (thanks to the signal processing unit 22 connected to the temperature sensor 6 by way of the control line 11). In order to maintain optimum economy of the chemical additives, the two signal processing units 21 and 22 operate simultaneously to optimise the additive dosing rate, their signals being applied to the pump 14 by way of the summing means 23. Thus the controller provides a rate of addition of additive which is just sufficient to provide the desired effect, in this case corrosion inhibition, without adding more of the additive than is needed. The rate of addition of the additive 15 therefore varies continuously in response to variations of the flow rate and/or temperature or oxygen content of the feed water from the tank 1 to the boiler along line 8. It will of course be appreciated that if the temperature or oxygen content remains constant, then the operation of the pump 14 is directly proportional to the flow rate of water past the sensing station at flow rate sensor 5; likewise, for a constant flow rate and a varying temperature or oxygen content, the rate of operation of the pump 14 is inversely proportional to the temperature sensed at the sensor 6 if a temperature sensor, or proportional to the oxygen content sensed at sensor 6 if an oxygen content sensor. In the case of corrosion inhibitors in boiler feed water, the action of the additives may be to remove oxygen from the water. If the water temperature is 25 0C then it will in all probability contain 8.1 ppm of dissolved oxygen, whereas at 600C the oxygen content will be as low as 4.7 ppm. If there is no allowance made for the variation in temperature, then for a given flow rate of the water along line 8, the amount of additive with which the water is dosed when at a water temperature of 600C will be approximately 70% in excess of what is needed given that particular water temperature. The dosing controller in accordance with the present invention avoids this excessive use of the additive and provides a much more economic control of the boiler. Although the preferred embodiment described above uses temperature as the second parameter, it is possible in accordance with the present invention for other parameters to be used as the second parameter, for example oxygen content. The invention should therefore not be considered as restricted to the addition of corrosion inhibitors in boiler feed water systems. Furthermore, it is not essential that the second parameter be one which has an inverse proportionality ratio to the amount of additive to be dosed. Furthermore, although the present invention has been exemplified in terms of addition of a liquid additive to a liquid material, in this case boiler feed water, it is of course possible for materials other than liquid to be dosed using the dosing controller in accordance with the present invention, and for the additive itself to be of other than liquid form. The dosing pump 14 may be any form of metering pump, and is preferably an impulsing pump which repetitively injects a known dose of the additive into the feed water line, in response to the signals from the dosing controller 9. For example, it is envisaged that with the impulsing type of pump one dose may be injected every 4 or 5 seconds, but it will of course be appreciated that the time interval between successive doses of the additive will be varied in dependence on the sensed temperature and flow rate. Thus, in order to provide a quantity of additive injected which is inversely proportional to temperature but directly proportional to flow rate, the time interval between doses will be inversely proportional to flow rate but directly proportional to temperature, provided the dose injected each time is constant.

Claims: CLAIMS 1. A dosing controller including means generating an output signal for controlling a dosing pump to supply at least one additive for dosing a material, first means responsive to the rate of movement of the material past a sensing station, and second means responsive to the temperature or oxygen content of the material passing through the sensing station, the controller including summing means to vary said output signal for controlling the operation of the dosing pump in response to both the temperature or oxygen content and said rate of movement of the material and to the said other parameter of the material. 2. A dosing controller according to claim 1, wherein the means for sensing the rate of movement of the material past the sensing station comprises a flow sensor responsive to the flow of a liquid material therepast. 3. A dosing controller according to either one of the preceding claims, wherein the dosing controller varies the output signal in inverse ratio with respect to variations in the temperature sensed. -4. A dosing controller according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein each of the signal processing units and the summing means handles analog signals. 5. A dosing controller according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the summing means and each of the signal processing means handle digital signals and an analog-digital converter is included in the feed line to each of the signal processing units and a digital-analog converter is provided for transforming the output signal from the summing means. 6. A method of dosing a material with at least one additive, comprising sensing the rate of movement of the material past a sensing station, sensing the temperature or oxygen content of the material passing said sensing station, introducing at least one additive into the material, and automatically generating a control signal to control operation of said additive introduction step in response to both the measured rate of movement of the material through the sensing station and the measured temperature of the material. 7. A method according to claim 6, wherein the rate of dosing of the material with additive is directly proportional to the rate of movement sensed, and inversely proportional to the temperature. 8. A method according to either one of claims 6 and 7, wherein the material is water. 9. A meth-od according to claim 8, wherein the material to be dosed is boiler feed water and the additive is a corrosion inhibitor liquid which is added in direct proportion to the flow rate of the boiler feed water past the sensing station and in inverse proportion to the temperature, or in proportion to the oxygen content, of the feed water flowing past the sensing station. 10. A method according to any one of claims 6 to 9, wherein the said at least one additive is introduced into the material as a succession of distinct doses of a given size, the time between successive doses being inversely proportional to the desired rate of introduction of the additive.

Inventors: WOODWARD, ALAN
Applicants: W.R. GRACE & CO.-CONN. (A CONNECTICUT CORP.)
Application year: 1986
Main classification: G05D11
IPC codes: G05D11