Design of Hydraulic Door Opening System in Digester for Titanium Dioxide Plant

Abstract

Titanium Dioxide plant is a leading profit earning enterprise. Titanium di oxide (TiO2) is mainly used in paint industry. It is also used in inks, plastics, textiles, ceramics etc. India is one of the most prospective markets for titanium dioxide. The demand for it is estimated at the level of 150,000 tons annually. Every year the consumption rises for about 9-10%. The main objective of this paper is to design a hydraulic door operating system in digester for Titanium dioxide plant, to improve production rate. Digestion is the main process in the manufacture of Titanium dioxide. The digesters are located at Ilmenite Beneficiation Plant (IBP). Leaching of the reduced ilmenite is done in the digesters. There are eight digesters in IBP which are operating in a sequence. For the feeding and removal of reduced ilmenite the digester door has to be opened and closed. Currently this is done manually. For the manual operation of the digester door, the manual effort required is very large and also time for this process is also more. The replacement of this manual effort with a hydraulic system helps in avoiding the manual labour as well as saves time.