Accurate CO Monitoring Key to Reducing Downtime

For plant operators, while monitoring carbon monoxide (CO) levels in the Electrostatic Precipitator (ESP) or combustion chamber is primarily a safety exercise, ensuring measurements are accurate is key to reducing plant downtime. To help plants achieve this reduction, Siemens Industry (UK) developed the SITRANS SL, a non-contact gas analyser designed for process control safety and optimisation.

The SITRANS SL is an in-situ analyser for the remote sensing of gas concentrations. Importantly for industries including mining and aggregates, waste and power, it allows operators to set the CO safety trip point closer to the explosion limit than would be possible with other devices, which reduces the risk of unnecessary plant shutdowns.

Using tuneable diode laser-based technology, the SITRANS SL enables measurements to be carried out with a very short response time and allows laser locking completely independent of process gas concentrations.

Bob Lane, Siemens Industry, comments: “Incorporating the measurement of carbon monoxide into the SITRANS SL is a technological advancement that has the potential to reduce downtime in the power sector significantly. As is the case across industry, operators face increasing pressure to maximise operational efficiency and we understand that reducing spurious plant shutdowns by enabling operators to increase the trip point for excess CO levels, without compromising adequate safety margins, is crucial to this process.

“At Siemens, through working closely with customers to understand their specific challenges, we’ve engineered the SITRANS SL to save plants time on maintenance, as it’s easy to align and service. Also, the device is both robust enough to withstand the sector’s tough operating environment and sensitive enough to provide accurate measurements which exclude other process influences such as dust and temperature – which was previously a concern for operators.”

The Siemens SITRANS SL can be fully integrated with the plant, enabling enhanced communication through Siemens Totally Integrated Automation Platform.