By Aryanto Wibisono, deputy manager, analytical measurement division, PT Control Systems
It’s easy to think of wastewater as the forgotten kid of industrial and municipal applications. The lower budgets and constrained personnel power often means wastewater is the last to take advantage of new technologies and solutions. And sometimes this can be a costly mistake as an installation at an Indonesian Liquid Natural Gas plant shows.
This LNG plant, the largest in Kalimantan, Indonesia, has a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to ensure its wastewater quality meets environmental regulatory requirements before they discharge effluent into the sea – a demand shared by most industrial enterprises. This plant has been granted a gold rating in the Indonesian government PROPER* program and, in order to maintain its gold status, the company must continually strive to utilize innovative methods that ensure environmental compliance and sustainability. However, its wastewater treatment pond is located remotely, about 1 kilometer (km) from the LNG plant. Due to physical constraints and economic considerations, it had not been possible to implement online effluent pH measurement. The monitoring and reporting of process wastewater was done manually via a third-party Health, Safety & Environment (HSE) engineer. This method requires the HSE engineer to commute to the wastewater pond at least two to three times daily, collecting effluent grab samples and reporting data back to the local environmental agency.
From both the efficiency and compliance points of view, this method was unsatisfactory. The manual pH recording method is extremely time-consuming and accuracy of sample data can be unreliable. The risk of poor quality effluent being discharged between manual recording intervals is also a serious concern. Sample recordings can be missed when the HSE engineer is unable to go onsite due to safety issues such as severe weather conditions. Any uncaptured data poses a risk of violating regulatory statutes, resulting in penalties or operation suspension. Many municipal and industrial wastewater installations find themselves with this kind of challenge.
To solve the problem, this LNG plant implemented wireless – a technology some wastewater installations assume is out of their reach. The plant used the Rosemount™ 56 Dual Channel Transmitter with the Emerson Wireless 775 THUM™ Adapter and gained access to real-time online effluent pH monitoring. Previously, manual sample recordings took one to one-and-a-half hours to complete, and this was carried out two to three times per day, year-round. Replacing the manual method with a wireless solution saved approximately 1,000 hours of labor and travel time to the site. Yes, 1,000 hours! The return on investment was huge and immediate.
The remote diagnostic features of the wireless Rosemount 56 Liquid Analyzer enable maintenance engineers to quickly and easily identify and determine the cause of an issue, such as poor wastewater quality or a device malfunction. The data logger function provides data redundancy, mitigating the risk of losing data in the event of a power failure, and offers data recording for environmental audit reporting. Maintenance engineers can also download the process data and event logger from the analyzer to a memory stick for further analysis. Due to the success of this wireless solution, the plant plans to expand the monitoring scope to include turbidity and dissolved oxygen (DO) monitoring.
This example shows that few industrial applications can ignore the potential benefits of wireless technology. Wireless makes possible levels of automation unthinkable only a short time ago. Where are you using wireless in your installations?
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