Sodium Chlorate Drying and Load-Out System

Location

Prince George, British Columbia

Customer

B.C. Chemicals Limited

Background

B.C. Chemicals Ltd. operates a sodium chlorate production plant in Prince George, British Columbia. The facility was originally constructed to provide a concentrated chlorate solution to customers immediately adjacent to the plant. This concentrated solution was made from electrolytically produced sodium chlorate, which was then centrifuged to form crystals and then dissolved. By the addition of a crystal drying system and a truck and rail load-out system, B.C. Chemicals was able to ship the dried crystals to customers far removed from their plant.

Project Scope

Universal Dynamics provided engineering and construction supervision for the project. The process involves the drying of the sodium chlorate crystals with a fluidized bed dryer using dried, steam heated air forced into the bottom plenum section of the dryer. The dryer exhaust gas is quenched with evaporator conden-sate by a spray prior to entering an impingement type scrubber. The dried crystals are transported to the truck and rail load-out bins by dense phase pneumatic transport. The four load-out bins are mounted on load cells to sense the amount of product in each bin. From these bins, the crystals are loaded onto rail cars automatically at a combined rate of 200 MT per hour.

The building was extended to house the new equipment and an existing rail spur was extended to provide sufficient trackage for five rail cars. Electrical power, control, and instrumentation, including PLC and DCS (Foxboro IA), was also part of the project.

Highlights

The project was implemented in an operating plant as a process addition with minimum disruption to plant production. The load-out facility is automated and is designed to maximize the loading rate of the rail cars.