Control solution minimises materials waste

Alcoa World Chemicals has completed implementation of Pavilion's APC solution for control and optimisation on five out of the six kilns on its aluminium fluoride plant at Point Comfort in Texas.

Alcoa World Chemicals has completed implementation of Pavilion's APC solution for control and optimisation on five out of the six kilns that are part of the aluminium fluoride plant at Alcoa's Point Comfort facility in Texas, USA.

Pavilion's solution addresses the production of alumina fluoride, which is used as a fluxing agent of aluminium smelting.

The project goal was to reduce the amount of calcium fluoride left in the gypsum coproduct that discharge from the kilns, thus maximising the use of the raw material and enhancing the quality parameters of the gypsum coproduct.

In just six months the company has deployed control solutions on five kilns and exceeded performance goals.

Alcoa turned to Pavilion Technologies to achieve new levels of production efficiency to address the rising cost of raw materials.

As part of Pavilion's ValueFirst initiative, Pavilion worked with the Alcoa team to evaluate how the kiln control application would contribute to the Aloca's key business objectives.

Based on the analysis, Pavilion guaranteed a return on investment in 12 months.

The project has exceeded this goal.

"Today's marketplace requires that we continuously identify ways to reduce variable costs", said Alcoa Technical Superintendent, Dennis Eisele.

"We selected Pavilion based on their understanding of process control, which enabled them to identify solutions to our toughest problems".

"The combination of a strong technical solution, experienced engineers, and guaranteed results made selecting Pavilion an easy decision".

The project at Alcoa's Point Comfort operations was implemented in January.

In the six months since, the installation has decreased the amount of unreacted calcium fluoride by a factor of almost three; and reduced the process variability in critical downstream process by 75%.

"With our solution, Alcoa has achieved even higher levels of production performance", said Pavilion CEO Ralph Carter.

"We are honoured to work with Alcoa and other leading manufacturers to deliver bottom-line results year-over-year".

Alcoa Point Comfort Operations is one the largest producers of aluminium fluoride in the world.

It is also one of the world's largest producers of alumina.

Alcoa produces commodity hydrates and calcines - the materials necessary for producing alumina-based chemicals.

These products are used in the global alumina, commodity chemicals and aluminium ingot markets.

Alcoa's Point Comfort operations which has an alumina refining capacity of 2.3 million metric tons per year, is one of several Alcoa facilities that services the global demand for alumina.

Pavilion's mineral and mining solution is powered by the multi-variable, model predictive capability of Pavilion's optimisation and control software.

Pavilion's software enables manufacturers to control and optimise key production variables, resulting in increased production, increased yield, and decreased energy consumption.

Back to top