Solids Handling Challenges during Process Scale-up

Solids handling operations are sometimes not given enough emphasis during planning and design stages. This is often based on the perception that solids will relatively easily move from bins, silos, hoppers, transfer chutes and feeders. However, this is not the case many times, especially when you are scaling up operations. During the pilot-plant stage, due to the low production volumes, it is possible to rely on manual intervention for assisting solids handling. However, when the pilot plant successfully demonstrates the concept and it is time for scale-up, one cannot rely on manual intervention. The solids handling operations need to perform reliably, on their own. Many studies have shown that when handling solids, the time required to start-up a plant can be significantly more than the planned time, due to challenges involved in solids handling.

This presentation will review different solids handling operations at a typical production plant, the challenges associated with reliably handling the solids and what can be done to avoid solids flow issues.