Lanxess upgrades safety at German chemicals plant
5 Aug 2009
Bruehl, Germany - Lanxess AG has selected HIMA Paul Hildebrandt GmbH + Co KG to upgrade an existing HIMA ESD (emergency shutdown) system at its hexane oxidation plant in the Krefeld-Uerdingen Chemical Park, Germany.
The unit is used to manufacture KA oil - a polymer feedstock comprising a mixture of cyclohexanone and cyclohexanol and produced by the oxidation of cyclohexane. In the event of an accident, a process involved in producing KA oil may need to be shut down.
The task of the ESD system is to deactivate the reaction in the event of danger, and relax the process. Among its most important tasks is the monitoring of limit values and control valves.
As Lanxess planned to shutdown the plant for a very short period before commissioning, it decided to conduct a Factory Acceptance Test (FAT) using the expanded and modernised safety system. To this end, a concept was drawn up together with the speciality chemcials maker and the system was replicated 1:1 at HIMA in Brühl.
All of the functions were tested as part of the FAT in collaboration with staff from Lanxess, TÜV Süd Chemieservice and HIMA. This enabled the commissioning time to be reduced to a minimum, according to HIMA.
The HIMA safety system has been in reliable and fault-free operation at the plant since 1999. The new project involved adding two new module racks and I/Os, and extending the communication with the process control system.
New central modules with larger memories have been incorporated. In addition, the ELOP II engineering tool was upgraded using the Ethernet protocol for its connection to the engineering PC. The link with the Siemens control system is a simple and efficient PROFIBUS-DP.
The new ESD system, consisting of an H51q safety controller with nine IOMRs (input/output module racks), is housed in two switchgear cabinets. 936 input and output signals are processed with respect to safety.
