ANNOUNCEMENTS
The broad concept of manufacturing sustainability is understood and projects related to energy conservation are carried out which a part of manufacturing sustainability. The work revolved around visiting manufacturing factories under GILAC(Godrej Industries Limited and associate Companies), understanding the manufacturing process, utilities involved, major energy consumption area etc. The objective of the project or the main focus area for energy conservation was reached after completely understanding the energy flow and discussion with the engineering services team regarding their pain area. The chemical factory and soap manufacturing facility was visited and the process flow for products like SLS/SLES surfactants which are a key raw material for detergent manufacturing and Godrej No1 soap was understood. The process involved some bottlenecks related to energy consumption. Like in Soap Making plant where soap noodles were manufactured for Godrej No 1 soap, the cooling tower had salt deposits which were affecting the heat transfer area and thus the effectiveness of cooling tower. Also the heat exchanger used for drying of soap noodles had deposits of sodium silicate on it. In case of SLS/SLES surfactant manufacturing, steam consumption was very high. The process was understood for determining the cause of high energy consumption. Like in case of Soap Making plant, the fouling or salt deposition of cooling tower, sodium silicate deposition on heat exchanger were the main cause for reduced heat transfer area or less effectiveness. In case of SLS/SLES process the current scrubber used for scrubbing the excess Sulphur dioxide gas to comply with the standards of Gujarat Pollution Control Board for stack emissions was the source of high bleed which required huge energy for its evaporation. After determination of the causes for high energy consumption, alternatives for performing the same operation but with low energy consumption was found in the form of some technological or process change. Like in case of Soap Making plant “Spray Vacuum Chamber” which was used for simultaneous drying and cooling of soap was proposed to replace by “No spray Vacuum Chamber”, sodium silicate injection was proposed at vacuum drying which was after shell and tube heat exchanger to prevent deposit on pipes of heat exchanger. For high steam consumption in SLS/SLES, dry scrubber was suggested instead of wet scrubber for scrubbing SO2 gas.
Keywords: Manufacturing, sustainability, energy saving, soap, SLS/SLES
