A NEW PROCEDURE FOR WATER DECARBONATION PROCESS-CONTROL

Water decarbonation has become a standard procedure for the treatment of the water used in industries requiring a bicarbonate, organic matte r, and colloid-free, low-hardness supply, for example soft drink bever age industries. One of the keys to efficient decarbonation is using th e right concentration of calcium hydroxide. While any amount below the stoichiometric dose would fail to ensure good removal, any excess hyd roxide would increase the alkalinity and hardness of the water. Althou gh different controlling methods have been proposed, this operation ha s so far, in general, not been automatically controlled. In this paper the authors present a new procedure to control the process based on t he execution of a indefinite number of cycles. Rather than maintaining a continuous set, point, the aim of the proposed system is to provide a mean base dose equal to the continuous dose, that should be added t o the incoming water in order to neutralize its acidity, in a cycle pe riod. The results obtained in the experimental validation of the proce dure show that it may be a good alternative to solve the problem of de carbonation process control.