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Chemours Saves Close to $265,000 a Year with 3D Solids Scanner

The Chemours Company — an American chemical company founded in July 2015 as a spin-off from DuPont — is a global provider of performance chemicals, including titanium technologies, fluoroproducts, and chemical solutions.

At the 2016 Emerson Exchange Americas in Austin, Texas, James Simon and Ariana Buckley, from Chemours, and Brian Cleary, with Emerson, will discuss how Chemours uses fluorospar to manufacture hydrofluoric acid at its facility in LaPorte, Texas, and how challenging fluorospar is to accurately measure. Also known as calcium fluoride, the material arrives to the site in trucks and is flash-dried to .01 percent moisture by weight in the spar drying unit.

“Dry spar is a dusty, powder-like solid that flows like water,” according to Simon. When relying on manual “rodding,” operators must walk to the top of each storage silo —  one is 38 feet high and the other is 71 feet tall — twice a week. Using measuring tape and a specified nozzle, operators manually measure from the top of each silo to the top of the spar. Aside from the personal safety issue facing these technicians, this method fails to provide continuous level indication.

After using several other level measurement technologies in its two storage silos, the plant was unable to measure the true level of fluorospar, which is the most expensive raw material consumed by the hydrofluoric acid process.

“However, once we installed two Rosemount 5708S 3D solids scanners, we were able to access accurate level measurement by mapping the surface of the powder through the dust,” Buckley said. Both of the storage silos are now equipped with highly accurate, continuous level measurement with visualization, enabling accurate consumption data and eliminating manual, single point level measurement.

The scanners were originally developed for use in the Israeli desert because they perform well in harsh, dusty environments and are self-cleaning. Each scanner sends three low-frequency acoustic signals through cones and measures the time, distance, and direction of the return echoes. They also provide accurate, non-contacting level measurement including a 3D profile of the top layer of the material.

Accounting errors can be costly, but since the installations, Chemours is saving about $265,000 a year by resolving the inaccurate level measurement in the spar storage silos and correctly calculating the total consumed volume of fluorospar.  

Chemours was the first to purchase and install the 3D solids scanner after Emerson acquired the technology. The first scanner was installed on the north silo in October 2014. Because of its excellent performance and accuracy, a second scanner was installed on the south silo in March, 2016.