Ask the Expert

Jim Ford, MAVERICK's business leader of advanced process control, answers our customers’ questions about APC.

Question: Can you help me control temperatures in a series of catalytic reactors where temperature upsets lead to rapid loss of catalyst activity?

Answer: Yes, MAVERICK can design and implement model-based temperature controls that will greatly stabilize reactor temperatures. This can be done directly in your DCS without the need for any additional hardware or software. In a recent project, model-based APCs reduced the variance of the reactor outlet temperatures by more than 50 percent. This reduced the loss of catalyst activity by at least 10 percent, which in turn reduced the catalyst cost by more than $300K annually.