SUPERCRITICAL CO2 EXTRACTION PILOT PLANT DESIGN – TOWARDS IoT INTEGRATION

Preliminary communication The interest in high pressure technology during last decades increased intensively. Supercritical Fluid Extraction (SFE) is a process that is growing in importance as an alternative to conventional separation processes. SFE uses environmentally friendly CO2 as the extracting agent in the process because of its relatively low critical pressure (7,38 MPa), its low critical temperature (304 K), its non-dangerous character and low cost. During this process it is necessary to use high pressures in the procedure. The extractor vessel (pressure vessel) is the most important equipment of the system, where the supercritical conditions need to be established and the extraction occurs. Also other devices (separator vessel, heat exchangers, valves etc.) are necessary to be involved in the process due to used high pressures. Safety is the most important factor while dealing with SFE systems and the design of such equipment with full safety of process is very hard task. Therefore, to achieve the high desired safety level, a reliable control system must be designed as the control system and data communication segment. Various different process parameters such as CO2 mass flow rate, extraction pressures and temperatures affect the extraction process and the quality of the extract; hence these parameters need to be precisely controlled and monitored during the extraction. A design of one supercritical CO2 extraction laboratory-pilot plant and development of a remote control and its supervision system is presented in this paper. The developed SFE system (mechanical and electrical components) was compared with the existing commercial systems and its main advantages over the existing systems are presented. By enabling remote control and supervision the classical process control is joined with the concept of Internet of Things (IoT), where the information becomes omnipresent in the vast realm of Internet.