Monitoring System for Batch Reactors Using Adaptive Heat Balances

A monitoring system based on adaptive heat balances has been developed for early fault detection in exothermic reactions. Its efficiency could experimentally be proven for a homogeneous esterification reaction in the laboratory reactor and pilot plant scale.
Experiments under normal and several faulty conditions were carried out in different reactor scales to prove the adaptation of the monitoring technique to various scales of chemical batch reactors. Results of the on-line testing in the pilot plant showed that the monitoring system was able to recognise undesired faults correctly.