of mineral oil-based grease using microwaves as a heating source. With temperature increase of about one degree centigrade per minute, on a 500-gallon (~2 tons) batch of aluminum complex grease and 70kW microwave input, it could be considered groundbreaking development in process heating for grease. Patterson Industries’ vessel (Figure 1) incorporates the use of susceptors in conjunctions with microwave to universally process products regardless of the product polarity or dielectric values. Since there is no need for a vessel jacket, a single wall kettle can be used to make products with microwave power, significantly reducing the cost of the vessel. Figure 2 shows a WAVEtek single wall vessel designed for processing liquid products and relies on circulation jets for mixing.
In general, the energy required to heat a volume of any product is the same regardless of the type of heat. But the efficiency of the delivery of heat to the product goes down when energy is converted from one form to another, and when the vessel wall has to be heated in order to heat the product. By direct excitation of product molecules to generate frictional heat within the product, wave-based heating reduces the energy waste by an estimated 50%.
Wave based processes are safer because once the microwave input is stopped all heating halts. Conventional heat transfer oil-based processes require time to heat up and continue to maintain the latent heat even after the boiler is turned off. In the Patterson grease kettle, an array of temperature sensors inside the mixing arms monitors the temperature of the product and report back to the PLC, forming a closed loop. Once the desired temperature is reached the PLC ramps the microwave input down and then up as needed to hold the product at the near exact desired temperature. This practically eliminates the possibility of overshooting the exact temperature setting, thus delivering exact temperature within a fraction of a degree. The accuracy of temperature control by wave-based heating makes the process more suitable for incorporation of AI in the process.
Figure 2: Remote magnetron head applies microwaves into the vessel. Source: WAVEtek Process Technology, LLC USA
Artificial Intelligence and Process Control Processing products that require heating have common traits. The heat from a heating source causes an increase in temperature. During the heating process certain volatiles leave the product. The volatiles, vapors and gases are emitted with a certain intensity corresponding to the strength of heat input. During the process, certain volatiles may increase in intensity first and then gradually diminish in intensity or disappear completely.
Figure 1: Microwave-operated kettle used for manufacturing grease, Source Patterson Industries Canada.
There is ample amount of literature on sensors suitable for monitoring numerous chemical components of food and other products during heating processes. Terms such eNose and eTongue are used to refer to sensor packages that can monitor various process byproducts indicative of smell or taste. Sensors that can sense the presence of glucose or sugars in process byproduct in effect test the sweetness of a product thus falling into the category of eTongue sensors. In grease processing, the pH of the product is monitored as a means of determining the end of the reaction
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