The site produces more than 120,000 tons of asphalt each year for road construction sites in the Ile de France region. It is subject to prefectoral authorization for operation and to ICPE (Environment protection) regulations.
These require regular measurements of atmospheric emissions and impose a maximum threshold for dust concentrations in the exhaust fumes.
Interview with Mr. Pierre Beauquesne, Equipment Management at EUROVIA.
What is the context for upgrading the site in terms of emissions control?
The installation is equipped with a bag filter covering a surface area of more than 1,100 m2, which is composed of more than 700 Nomex® type textile bags. It is intended to ensure the filtration of dust-laden raw gases in order to guarantee a weight index fixed in the prefectural decree at 50 mg of total dust/Nm3.
As the filter bags of this dust collector are highly strained, we were looking for a reliable measuring device to alert us immediately if the 50 mg threshold was exceeded.
Asphalt Production Process
Moisture content of storage raw material is a key element to the plant gas consumption. Since it changes on a daily basis, the process operating parameters need to be adapted continuously.
The manufacturing process includes 2 main sources of raw material supply:
- aggregates of all sizes sent to the rotary kiln via cold conveyors
- recycled materials inserted in the mixing tower.
ENVEA’s solution: M-Sens
Customer benefits:
- Optimized boiler combustion, reduced gas consumption
- Time saving and product quality improvement thanks to online and continuous moisture measurement.
Due to the harsh conditions within the process, material flow monitoring is essential to ensuring a better yield of the final product and thus increasing the productivity.
ENVEA’s solution: FlowJam T
Customer benefits:
- Quick detection of production stoppages
- Reduced downtime and maintenance
Minimum and maximum level detection at various points within the asphalt plant is critical.
If silos, bucket elevators, chutes and hoppers are overfilled or insufficiently this will lead to blockages and plant downtime.
ENVEA’s solution: ProGap
Customer benefits:
- Online warning of materials level
- Quick detection of production jams
Optimizing filter performance is key to ensuring the smooth running of production facilities. The ability to identify or predict filter failure ensures production is kept at its required demand.
ENVEA’s solution: LEAK ALERT
Customer benefits:
- Reduced downtime
- Increased productivity
- Reduced filter replacement costs
Continuous measurement of particulate emission concentration enables to meet and exceed national and international standards.
That can be achieved through ENVEA’s ElectroDynamic™ range of products designed for use in harsh environments.
ENVEA’s solution: STACK or VIEW range, DUST TOOLS software
Customer benefits:
- Compliance with Emission Limit Values (ELV)
- Reduced environmental impact
Real-time odour monitoring (ex: H2S), particulate leaking and PM sizing can help to better identify environmental issues as well as protecting the workforce/neighbours from exposure to hazardous material.
ENVEA’s solution: Cairsens® micro-sensors (H2S and PM), AirSafe<
- Help to reduce environmental impact on population
- Anticipate at-risk situations
- Reduce maintenance costs
What ENVEA solutions have you implemented?
As part of an IoT experiment for the development of the connected factory at EUROVIA, we took advantage of the partnership with ENVEA to test the PCME LEAK ALERT 65-02 connected in real time to our IoT platform.
The device quickly demonstrated its efficiency and met our expectations by immediately alerting us to the slightest filter failure. Indeed, after a few days of use we noticed a peak of overflow at a regular frequency which corresponded to a filter bag that had shifted in its housing.
The bag was replaced correctly and the peak disappeared immediately.
Installation details:
This system is particularly suitable for use on fabric filter dust collectors (baghouses). It allows reliable and robust monitoring of particle leakage from faulty bags.
The sensor, installed after the bag filter, conditions, amplifies and analyzes the dust signal and remotely communicates a secure digital signal to the control unit for configuration, local display and 4-20 mA output signals.
The leak detector is suitable for temperatures from 0 to 250°C and up to 400°C. We have chosen the option of a scanning system as well as an insulating PTFE coating to avoid condensation and acidity.
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Did the ENVEA solutions meet your expectations?
We have conducted extensive tests and are fully satisfied with the stability of the measurements and the durability of the PCME LEAK ALERT 65-02. We have therefore asked ENVEA for a wider deployment of this type of device on EUROVIA sites looking for solutions for dust leak detection.
Thanks to the quality of our exchanges with our contact at ENVEA, we were also able to deploy similar devices on other sites in the Ile-de-France region and in the rest of France where the IoT system is not implemented.
The PCME VIEW 370, associated with the Dust Tools software, has thus proved to be a reliable and durable solution for dust measurement. The system is self-contained and allows for easy reporting of emissions without the need to develop a specific internal tool. As it is not yet linked to our IoT system in direct measurement, it has therefore successfully met our operating constraints.