Hello Everyone,
Before I started working at my new job, the production facility installed an in-line nitrogen heater. The intended use is to heat the N2 to about 150-160 C in order to improve stripping efficiency in our process. The heating element can not be inside the reaction room because it is not explosion proof rated and the resulting pipe is about 100 ft long. By the time the N2 reaches the process vessel it is already cooled down to 35 C (temp controller set point is 250 C) On top of that, there is a huge pressure drop across the control valve as the N2 enters the vessel from roughly 120 psi to 3 psi. (Dropping the temp even more.) The piping is insulated with 1" fiberglass insulation. To top everything off, the temperature control thermocouple is located immediately after the heater. So I guess my question is can someone help me troubleshoot and try to fix this catastrophe of a project?
Here are a couple of the ideas I've had to potentially fix the problem.
1) Move the thermocouple farther down the piping to get the N2 to an acceptable temp closer to the vessel.
2) Regulate the pressure back before the heating element to about 10 psi to decrease the pressure drop across the control valve. (PV=nRT)
Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.
PS: Nitrogen is coming out of an outside microbulk storage tank from AirGas.
Much Thanks,
A Frustrated Engineer