I work with ABS
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I have been graduated for just two years; I was involved in the development of an ABS project as a technician in the process team. Although I have just switched to a career in design, out of professional ethics, I can only provide an overall overview of ABS here. 1. An overview: ABS stands for AN (acrylonitrile), BD (butadiene), and SM (styrene), which respectively provide ABS with chemical properties, toughness, and rigidity. Our factory uses American GE technology, acquired from Saudi Arabia. It is mainly divided into 4 units: PBL, HRG(BP), SAN, and blending. 2. PBL unit: PBL is an emulsion polymer of BD; its production process is relatively simple, with reaction and homogenization being the key steps, and it also includes flash evaporation and BD recovery processes. The control of its reactor employs cascade and stratified control, while homogenization is achieved using physical methods to increase the particle size of the emulsion polymerization products. The PBD emulsion produced serves as a raw material for the following HRG units. 3. The person in charge of the HRG unit was also born here; he was involved in almost all aspects of the construction process, aside from the bidding phase, especially in the installation of DCS systems and large-scale equipment. HRG is also the BP unit. It mainly uses PBD, SM, and AN as raw materials to produce an ABS with a low rubber content. Its main processes include: emulsion reaction, coagulation (particle enlargement), deacidification, dehydration, drying, acid recovery, and pneumatic conveying. Among them, dehydration, drying, and most processes for producing solid products are similar. The reaction is also an emulsion polymerization; the control system is almost identical to that of PBD. Its conversion rate is much higher than that of the other two units, and no flashing is required. Condensation is the process of collision between positive and negative ions. 4. The main process flow of SANSAN: bulk polymerization, flash evaporation, underwater granulation, drying, and pneumatic conveying. The above two units are batch production, while this unit belongs to continuous production. This unit features numerous utility systems, with the core technology being underwater granulation. 5. Blending: The blending unit uses an extruder to add supplementary materials, thereby enabling the rigid SAN to encase the flexible HRG to produce various types of products. The performance of the product is primarily determined by the additives used. I know relatively little about SAN, as I haven’t worked in this department; I’m more familiar with the first two units. Please forgive me for providing only a general description here; I hope it will be helpful to you. If you want to learn more, please leave me a message. PFD or PID can be provided. Those who want to conduct process simulations can get in touch with me; some data can also be provided (I have it all memorized, though I’m not sure if it’s accurate). PS: Internal info: Chi Mei uses chemicals to increase PBD, while the technology at the company in Zhenjiang is relatively backward – the advanced technology is located in Taiwan. I hope that after graduating from university, one will still want to keep learning things... (No intention of criticizing anyone.) All those challenges and hardships associated with building factories in the past are no use anymore, day or night. I’ve started over for the people around me; I’m still a complete beginner when it comes to design, and I hope we can help each other in the future.
It’s really lucky to be able to work on big projects right after graduation; people born in the 1980s are truly fortunate to have caught this great period of development. The period following graduation in 1970 was essentially one of recession
Reply to 2# sailan: Society also puts a lot of pressure on people born in the 1980s, and not everyone gets opportunities; I’m just lucky. Hehe
Reply to 3# zxc17835: There will be more excellent people
Reply to 1# zxc17835: Does the original poster know where the design for Zhenjiang Qimei’s ABS project was carried out?
The SAN process I have come across involves the polymerization of AN and SM in toluene as a solvent; thereafter, unreacted AN, SM, and toluene are evaporated under vacuum. After that, the material goes through extrusion, granulation, drying, and pneumatic transport. I was working on-site at that time, so my acquaintance with them wasn’t as deep as the original poster’s. But the core of our manufacturing process lies in the reaction ratio adjustment and separation control at the initial stage; since different products require different feeding ratios as well as the addition of specific additives, and the separation process is carried out under heating conditions, poor control can lead to the formation of black spots and other impurities, thereby affecting the quality of the products. The granulation step that follows involves using a granulator to mechanically cut the extruded plastic strips into particles in water; all that’s needed is for the particle size to be appropriate. It’s not a particularly complex technical process, but it’s the stage in the entire SAN process where problems are most likely to occur. The operator’s main workload lies in this step. Eventually, we would light a cigarette every time we started working and pray in front of the monitor, hoping to have a safe day: lol.
May I ask which brand of centrifugal dehydrator you use for dehydration? Is it Tianma Shide Li? Are there any other brand manufacturers?
Hello, I’m new to the ABS industry and hope you can share more information related to ABS with me.
What are the monitoring indicators for ABS systems? Could you tell me?
It’s really great that you can still understand your own replies after all this time. The original poster is more or less correct; I’ve also been working in ABS for six years
What a lucky guy you are; I also started learning *technology right after graduating, with the intention of working in this industry for the rest of my life.