Safety update for coke drying oven

Donau Chemie AG has been producing calcium carbide at its Landeck plant since 1902, but the production facility is constantly kept up to date. Having carried out a general renovation of the carbide furnace, it was the turn of the gas supply to the coke drying oven to be adapted to the current safety regulations. The retrofit was to include not only the hardware, but also the safety-related software and its configuration, plus the connection of the factory-supplied sensors and actuators. It even included plant acceptance. The safety controller's task is not so trivial: in the event of a problem, it not only has to monitor the extinguishing of the flame and, if necessary, interrupt the gas supply, but also has to safely process numerous other complex steps in the process chain that shuts down the system. This is now undertaken by the safe burner management system PNOZmulti 2 Burner. As a complete solution, the burner controls all the burner's safety-related tasks in the coke drying oven.

The update focused on the burner on the coke drying oven: the operating technicians at Donau Chemie were looking for a complete solution for its safety-related tasks. They found what they were looking for in the small controller PNOZmulti 2 Burner: it now controls and monitors safety chains, combustion air pressure, ignition and flame formation. “The Burner” also reliably monitors the tightness of the supply lines, as well as the safety, ignition and vent valves, plus the combustion air fan. For this purpose, several modules in the plant are used to connect a total of 40 safe digital inputs, 4 analogue inputs and 12 digital outputs to the installed safe valves, sensors and actuators. A fieldbus module establishes the connection to the plant's higher-level standard controller via the Profibus communication protocol. This ensures that autonomous safety-related operations can also be implemented in the operational controller. Minimal downtimes and rapid fault detection are guaranteed by the operator terminals PMI from Pilz. The complete solution was perfect: Donau Chemie AG received a unique, easy-to-implement safety system. And everything was installed in just over a day: Pilz carried out the hardware planning and supplied an entire switchgear system including a pre-installed and assembled control cabinet.

• A single solution for controlling and monitoring the coke drying oven
• Connection to factory-supplied sensors and actuators.
• Fast all-round service – from hardware planning to delivery of the switchgear and control cabinet

The Donau Chemie Business Unit produces and sells basic inorganic chemicals for industry. At its three sites in Pischelsdorf, Brückl and Landeck, the company operates chemical production facilities for high-quality products used in the chemical industry. At the Landeck plant, founded in 1902, Donau Chemie AG employs around 85 people and produces around 40,000 tonnes of calcium carbide annually for acetylene gas and steel production. The company's own Wiesberg hydroelectric power plant ensures a purely ecological power supply for the energy-intensive production processes.