Generalized Predictive Control of Converter Inlet Temperature in the Process of Acid Production with Flue Gas

The effective control of converter inlet temperature in the process of acid production with flue gas is an effective means to improve the conversion rate of sulfur dioxide and reduce environmental pollution. According to the characteristics of the process of acid production with flue gas, the control process of converter inlet temperature is studied in this paper. Firstly, the CARIMA (Controlled auto-regressive integrated moving average, CARIMA) model of converter inlet temperature is established. Then, a generalized predictive controller based on CARIMA model is designed. Finally, the proposed method is verified by experiment and compared with PID controller. Experimental results show that the proposed method has a better tracking effect and smaller error. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified.

1 Introduction

Non-ferrous metals such as copper and cobalt are important strategic materials for the development of the national economy and the national defense industry, as well as raw materials for the manufacture of aircraft, missiles, computers, and other equipment. However, non-ferrous metals often exist in the form of sulfide in nature, and smelting them produces a large amount of flue gas containing sulfur dioxide (SO2) [1–2]. Direct discharge of SO2 into the atmosphere causes serious harm to human beings and the environment. According to the characteristics of non-ferrous metal smelting process [3], SO2 is often recovered to produce sulfuric acid in industrial sites. The inlet temperature of each layer of the converter is an important factor affecting the quality and yield of sulfuric acid in the process of acid production with flue gas. The conversion rate of SO2 can be maximized by suitable inlet temperature of converter. Therefore, the inlet temperature of the converter becomes the core control variable in the process of acid production with flue gas.