Shaanxi Coking Company: Ammonia content testing in gas reduced to 1 hour

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Shaanxi Coking Company: Time required for ammonia content testing in gas reduced to 1 hour Author/Source: Shaanxi Petrochemical News Date: 2019-06-21 Clicks: 19 Recently, the quality control center of Shaanxi Coking Company, in line with the overall goals of reducing costs and improving efficiency as well as saving energy, adopted the philosophy that saving money is equivalent to making money. By focusing on minor details, it improved the process for testing ammonia content in gas, thereby reducing the time required for such tests from 2 hours to less than 1 hour. Ammonia content in gas is one of the parameters analyzed as part of the company’s gas purification control system. Sulfuric acid is used to absorb the ammonia present in the gas, and the excess sulfuric acid is then back-titrated using a sodium hydroxide standard solution; the ammonia content in the gas is determined based on the amount of sulfuric acid consumed. In accordance with national standards regarding the minimum amount of ammonia to be absorbed and the flow rate of the coal gas, the ammonia content testing of this company’s coal gas takes approximately 1.5 hours. Adding the time required for preparing the chemicals in advance, installing the absorption devices on site, and releasing the coal gas as part of the experimental preparations, the entire monitoring process takes at least 2 hours. To save time, the technical staff at the company’s quality control center studied the principles of experimental procedures and the speed of acid-base reactions. Taking into account the current level of ammonia content in gas, and through extensive comparison of experimental data, they found that the concentration of the standard solution specified by national standards was too high; this led to errors of one or half a drop in the amount of standard solution used at the titration endpoint, resulting in deviations in the experimental results. “Once the issue was identified, the technicians immediately adjusted the amount of sulfuric acid used in the ammonia-containing gas experiments from 200 mL to 20 mL. They also changed the concentration of both sulfuric acid and sodium hydroxide solutions from 0.1 mol/L to 0.05 mol/L. Additionally, they adjusted the flow rate of the coal gas to between 1 L/min and 2 L/min. By determining the appropriate sampling volume based on the ammonia content, they conducted repeated experiments. The adjustments resulted in reduced consumption of experimental reagents, improved accuracy, shorter testing times, and **enhanced work efficiency**.