THE UNIVERSITY OF ZAMBIA

SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL & ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING

EG 365 [THERMODYNAMICS]

INDUSTRIAL VISIT TO ZAMANITA

NAME COMPUTER # Date of Tour Date Report Due : : : : ALFRED NAWA 28067878 20th April 2011 27th APRIL 2011

Attention
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: Mr. S.VIRDY

Table of Contents
Brief Introduction of ZAMANITA ............................................................................................................. 3 Safety First ...................................................................................................................................... 4 Steam / Boiler Plant Section ........................................................................................................... 5
Oil Refinery Section....................................................................................................................................... 9 Margarine Making and Packing Section...................................................................................................... 10 Other non-steam using Sections ................................................................................................................. 10 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................................. 10

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1. Brief Introduction of the Company - ZAMANITA

Zamanita is a part of Zambeef group of companies. Zamanita is the biggest manufacturer of edible oil from seeds in Zambia. The company also manufactures the following products at their Mumbwa Road Plant. Vegetable Oils, Margarines, Bakers' Fats, Soaps and Oil Seed Cakes. Mineral water.

In order to cater for their liquid products packaging needs, Zamanita also manufacture PET bottles, HDPE jerry cans of the size of 20L/10L/5L.

Physical Address: Mumbwa Rd, Lusaka

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2. Introduction: Industrial Visit to Zamanita, Mumbwa Road Plant.

The industrial visit to Zamanita was held on Wednesday 20th April 2011 at 2:00 pm. The industrial visit to Zamanita was a huge success with overwhelming response from the participants. The participants were 3rd Year Electrical Engineering Department students from the University of Zambia. The students were accompanied by the Lecturer Mr. S Virdy and two members of staff from the School of Engineering. The tour ended with a visit to the product packaging line for Margarine and Vegetable oil followed by the journey back to the University of Zambia at 3:30pm. After the safety Q&A session, we had a tour around the plant as stipulated in the paragraphs that follow this introduction. Explanations on the operations of different sections of Zamanita were given by the engineer, the production manager and the section supervisors of the various sections we visited.

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3. Safety First

Upon arrival, the students were briefed about the safety requirements during our visit by the safety supervisor. After the short briefing, our host gave a brief introduction on Zamanita. Specifically, he provided answers to questions such as: What does Zamanita do? Where are the products exported to?

There was a Q&A session following this introduction. Participants were curious and asked many questions on the working environment and benefits at Zamanita. Our gracious host openly shared his experiences at Zamanita with all participants. From the valuable insights and information provided by him and the Engineer, the participants better appreciated the benefits and career prospects at Zamanita.
The safety supervisor further explained to us that Zamanita facilities were industrial facilities and it was therefore important for us to stay with our tour guide at all times. He emphasized that we should never wander away on our own.

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4. The Steam / Boiler Plant Section

The Tour proper started with the students being led through the boiler section by the systems Engineer in the company of the company safety supervisor. The Engineer started by making a remark that a boiler or steam generator is used wherever a source of steam is required. He further clarified that the form and size depends on the application of the boiler. We observed that the company has two coal fired Boilers named as boiler 1 and boiler 2. The specifications of the boilers were given to us by the site Engineer as follows;
Water Capacity Operating Temperature Main Fuel Type Max Operation Pressure 1000 Litres 200 280 C Coal 9 Bars ( Boiler2)

The site Engineer mentioned that the main source of the coal used at the plant was from Mamba in Southern Zambia and Hwange Coal Mines in Zimbabwe. To get a good yield in terms of the energy supplied to the boilers, the Engineer said that the coal was best for use in the boilers when it had a moisture content of about 6%. If at any time the coal was deemed too dry, water was added to attain the foresaid percentage of coal moisture.

3.1

Operations Briefing of the boiler

From the briefing we got from the Engineer, the block diagram for the operation of this boiler plant can be sketched as shown below;

3.2

Source

The source of the water being used at the plant is a bore hole that was within the vicinity of the boiler plant. The engineer said that getting water from the commercial water utility company would have been very expensive especially considering that the boiler is the back bone of the production and operations of the company.

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3.3

Filter

The engineer said that due to the many impurities that are found in the water in Lusaka, it was required that the water being used be filtered of all these impurities and then softened using a Brine (Sodium Chlorides )plant within the premises to regulate PH levels in the water being fed to the boiler. So the water from the boreholes is passed through the filters and a softening process to get rid of the impurities and hardness of the water. 3.4 Internal Boiler treatment of the water

The water is further subjected to purification treatment and softening with in the boiler system. These seemingly tedious processes we were told ensure that the boiler operates efficiently without any complications arising from the working substance, water in this case. 3.5 Internal Boiler treatment of the water

The Engineer mentioned that the thermal efficiency may be improved by passing the gasses through an economizer. This is basically a heat exchanger in which the feed water being pumped into the boiler is preheated. He said that by so doing, the feed water is at a higher temperature compared to that which doesnt pass through the economizer. This therefore entails that less heat is required to heat the water to saturation temperature thereby improving the thermal efficiency. He further made a clarification that If a heater is installed before the economizer subsystem, a higher value of thermal efficiency may be attained.

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3.6

Actual operations on the Ground 1. We were told that the coal from the coal is usually fed into the coal bins by means of a front end loader. The coal is then fed to the boiler by means of screw conveyors by which means the coal deposited into the boilers.

Water Pump Flow Meters Heat Exchangers Coal Bin

Water Filter

Screw Conveyor

Boiler Drain Various steam Piping to sections Needing steam

2. The Boiler is kept ablaze by a fan system that sucks air from outside to feed oxygen into the boiler. This gives the boiler the rich supply of oxygen at all time. 3. After the development of superheated dry steam, the engineer said, it is fed through specially padded and insulated pipes to the many departments of the company that need steam for their day to day production and operation. 4. Some of the department that benefit from the boiler plant were identified as; The Oil Refinery Plant The margarine production and packaging plant

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3.7

Maintenance

The Engineer stressed that every year, the boiler or steam plant is closed for a month to facilitate preventative maintenance on the boiler and all its accessories. Its during this time that most serviceable parts are replaced. 3.8 By Products of the Steam Boiler system

We were told that ZAMANITA is striving daily to remain within the allowable discharge levels by the Environmental council of Zambia (ECZ). To this effect, the effluent and flue gases from the system are always being monitored to ensure the ECZ guidelines are not flouted. The engineer said that the coal ash material is used for road works repairs within the premises while the condensed water that drips from the drains is used for general cleaning of the plant surroundings before being drained out as waste water which of course is monitored for pollution agents. 3.9 Boiler safety

The visit to the boiler plant was summed up by the outlining of the safety measures when working with boilers. The engineer said that all steam possess boilers are pressure vessels that contain a great deal of Potential energy. He said Steam explosions can and have caused great loss of life in the past world over. While variations in standards may exist in different countries, stringent legal, testing, training and certification is applied to try to minimize or prevent such occurrences. He said that boiler Failure modes include:

over pressurization of the boiler insufficient water in the boiler causing overheating and vessel failure Pressure vessel failure of the boiler due to inadequate construction or maintenance.

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5. Oil Refinery Section

Of the many sections at ZAMANITA that need steam for their day to day production needs, the oil refinery is the biggest so we were advised by the Production Manager. He further advised us that the steam in mainly used for; Neutralization of the Crude oil to get rid of the fatty acids from the oil which comes to the refinery at room temperature The process of raising the temperature of crude oil from room temperature to about 90C using the steam Heat exchangers. Keep the oil flowing in the piping which without the temperature effect of the steam would clog the pipes.

The production summarised the usage of steam from the boiler in this section as per block diagram sketched below;
Crude Oil @ 23 C Heat Exchangers Crude Oil at 80-90C

Reactor Tank

Caustic Soda

Pure Oil

Impurities

Separator
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6. Margarine Making and Packing Section

The last section that we visited that uses the steam from the Boiler plant was the MARGARINE making and packaging section. The main application of steam in this section we were told is in the process of pasteurizing the margarine. Again here the phenomenon of heat exchangers is highly utilised to suddenly drop the margarine temperature from a maximum 120C to a paltry 20 C! The mixing of the raw materials for making the margarine does not require the steam from the boiler as it is done at room temperature. The section supervisor explained that these raw materials (palm olein and palm stearin which are solid at room temperature) were imported though the company has now ventured into the planting of palm trees in Mpika, Zambia The Production Manager explained that this sudden drop of temperature using heat exchangers will kill all germs in the butter pasteurizing. The other process that employs the steam from the boiler we were told is the Heating of the margarine making mixtures to about 90-100C in order to de-odourise the margarine. This process also uses heat exchangers The reduction of fatty acids in the margarine entails that the mixture be heated to a certain temperature which is attained by usage of the dry steam form the Boiler plant.

7. Other non-steam using Sections

The tour was wound up by us visiting the container making factory where all the vessels that are used to package ZAMANITAs oil products are produced. These production lines however do not directly use the steam produced by the steam plant. The production manager explained that heating in these sections is achieved by utilization of commercial power from Zesco.

8. Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be stated that the purpose of the industrial tour was achieved as we were able to see in production the theories that were widely covered in the lectures. We observed the operations on a Boiler / steam plant and we were able to step by step follow the usage and application of the steam produced by the boiler plant.

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We observed that the steam produced by the boiler plant is able to run the core business of the company without the company having spend a lot of resources to otherwise purchase all the heating accessories that they would have needed to buy had they not been running a steam plant on their premises. Its therefore not an overstatement when one concludes that, if properly maintained and serviced, a steam / boiler plant can indeed meet all the energy requirements of a production line. This industrial visit was a fruitful and enriching experience to all the participants the visit was not only useful for the participants who will be going for their industrial attachments, but it was also a great educational experience that allowed us a peek into the workings of the Steam Boiler plants in industry today.

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