A pilot plant is a pre-commercial production system that employs new production technology and/or produces small volumes of new technology-based products, mainly for the purpose of learning about the new technology. The knowledge obtained is then used for design of full-scale production systems and commercial products, as well as for identification of further research objectives and support of investment decisions. Other (non-technical) purposes include gaining public support for new technologies and questioning government regulations. Pilot plant is a relative term in the sense that pilot plants are typically smaller than full-scale production plants, but are built in a range of sizes. Also, as pilot plants are intended for learning, they typically are more flexible, possibly at the expense of economy. Some pilot plants are built in laboratories using stock lab equipment, while others require substantial engineering efforts, cost millions of dollars, and are custom-assembled and fabricated from process equipment, instrumentation and piping. They can also be used to train personnel for a full-scale plant. Pilot plants tend to be smaller compared to demonstration plants.
Terminology A word similar to pilot plant is pilot line. Essentially, pilot plants and pilot lines perform the same functions, but 'pilot plant' is used in the context of (bio)chemical and advanced materials production systems, whereas 'pilot line' is used for new technology in general. The term 'kilo lab' is also used for small pilot plants referring to the expected output quantities.
Risk management Pilot plants are used to reduce the risk associated with construction of large process plants. They do so in several ways:
Computer simulations and semi-empirical methods are used to determine the limitations of the pilot scale system. These mathematical models are then tested in a physical pilot-scale plant. Various modeling methods are used for scale-up. These methods include: Chemical similitude studies Mathematical modeling Chemical process simulation Finite Elemental Analysis (FEA) Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) These theoretical modeling methods return the following: Finalized mass and energy balances Optimized system design and capacity Equipment requirements System limitations The basis for determining the cost to build the pilot module They are substantially less expensive to build than full-scale plants. The business does not put as much capital at risk on a project that may be inefficient or unfeasible. Further, design changes can be made more cheaply at the pilot scale and kinks in the process can be worked out before the large plant is constructed. They provide valuable data for design of the full-scale plant. Scientific data about reactions, material properties, corrosiveness, for instance, may be available, but it is difficult to predict the behavior of a process of any complexity. Engineering data from other process may be available, but this data can not always be clearly applied to the process of interest. Designers use data from the pilot plant to refine their design of the production scale facility. If a system is well defined and the engineering parameters are known, pilot plants are not used. For instance, a business that wants to expand production capacity by building a new plant that does the same thing as an existing plant may choose to not use a pilot plant. Additionally, advances in process simulation on computers have increased the confidence of process designers and reduced the need for pilot plants. However, they are still used as even state-of-the-art simulation cannot accurately predict the behavior of complex systems.
Scale dependence of plant properties As a system increases in size, system properties that depend on quantity of matter (with extensive properties) may change. The surface area to liquid ratio in a chemical plant is a good example of such a property. On a small chemical scale, in a flask, say, there is a relatively large surface area to liquid ratio. However, if the reaction in question is scaled up to fit in a 500-gallon tank, the surface area to liquid ratio becomes much smaller. As a result of this difference in surface area to liquid ratio, the exact nature of the thermodynamics and the reaction kinetics of the process change in a non-linear fashion. This is why a reaction in a beaker can behave vastly differently from the same reaction in a large-scale production process.
Other factors Other factors that may change during the transformation to a production scale include:
Reaction kinetics Chemical equilibrium Material properties Fluid dynamics Thermodynamics Equipment selection Agitation Uniformity / homogeneity After data has been collected from operation of a pilot plant, a larger production-scale facility may be built. Alternatively, a demonstration plant, which is typically bigger than a pilot plant, but smaller than a full-scale production plant, may be built to demonstrate the commercial feasibility of the process. Businesses sometimes continue to operate the pilot plant in order to test ideas for new products, new feedstocks, or different operating conditions. Alternatively, they may be operated as production facilities, augmenting production from the main plant.
… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.
