ABB Digital Solutions have joined forces with Imperial College London to build an innovative pilot plant designed for chemical engineering students to study and test the various process aspects of carbon capture.
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ABB Ability™ Technology
The facility is equipped with an ABB Ability™ System 800xA control system and a wide-ranging selection of measurement instruments and analyzers from ABB. Ability™ is an innovative digital capability, ranging from device to edge to cloud, which is utilized in a variety of different industries. In the pilot plant, this technology enables careful monitoring of the facility operation and the conditions under which carbon capture process are run, bringing in a new age of plant management incorporating cloud technology.
One significant benefit of using ABB Ability™ technology is that it reduces the time needed for site maintenance, thus further improving the physical availability of the plant for teaching and research. Usually the large numbers of sensors in the plant are examined annually, however, this is highly time-consuming, and in some cases, the frequency of such checks can be actually be reduced to once every other year for the most urgent measurements. The myABB business portal allows students to access plant information from anywhere, giving data on device status at any time.
Cloud-Based Solution for Pilot Plant
ABB Ability™ Verification for measurement devices is just one of the cloud-based solution incorporated into the plant’s design. This utilizes diagnostic data from devices, which is automatically sent to the cloud, to calculate whether a plant instrument is functioning accurately. This development build’s on ABB’s original verification technology by introducing verification using the cloud. The plant operator, who previously would generally arrange for their instrumentation to be annually verified in agreement with quality management requirements or regulations, can now opt to execute automated verification tests at any required time. Performing such tests daily can help guarantee that plant devices are performing at their peak, in addition to detecting any decline in function before problems escalate.
Although verification has long been used for testing the performance of electromagnetic flow meters, ABB Ability™ Verification now enables examination of other instrumentation. This technology thus offers a solution to operators globally who require an economical, reliable and easy to use maintenance method.
This important enhancement to our pilot plant will not only ensure that the down time for the plant is minimized, but it will allow our students to learn at first-hand about the new cloud and remote access based technologies that will transform how process plants will be run and maintained in the future.
Dr. Daryl R Williams, Director of the Discovery Space in the Department of Chemical Engineering
This information has been sourced, reviewed and adapted from materials provided by ABB Measurement & Analytics.
For more information on this source, please visit ABB Measurement & Analytics.