Prospectus

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OR-7 Improving the Existing Distillation Test Unit to an Innovative/New Research Facility Expected Benefit toMembers: The upgrade of the existing test unit to an innovative/new test facility will benefit FRI members in getting more research results per year and equipment suppliers in having less expense. Present Situation and Proposed Research: The FRI test column first went on-line in 1954 and has been expanded and modified since. Though the present plant is able to test hardware under low pressure and high-pressure conditions the unit is not state-of-the-art equipment. Over the past year’s suppliers of hardware equipment have marketed and developed more and more high capacity devices that are of interest to FRI membership. The present test equipment is not designed to run these devices up to full capacity. Recent investigations of the status of the existing unit have verified that corrosion can be monitored to the column shell and heat exchangers and other equipment as pumps and pipe lines are hard to seal. In addition, searching for repair equipment of measurement devices as GC analyzer is getting difficult. Proposed Internals and Test System: None. Estimated Unit Time: The improvement works to raise an innovative/new distillation test unit will take a time frame of more than 1 year. Estimated Additional Costs (Beyond Unit Time): Capital costs for this are estimated to be $8-10MM. Background and Discussion: The following list should illustrate the targets that can be reached with the innovative test unit: • Minimize start-up and shut-down time by establishing an approved strategy to reach stable test conditions in a short time depending on the type of test system used and test equipment installed • Minimize operation time for a test run by the installation of various online concentration measurement devices to indicate constant conditions • Maximize number of tests per year by optimizing the operation strategy of the unit (i.e. minimize time of changing fluids, minimize time to install/extract test equipment…). • Incorporating modern/innovative measurement techniques to maximize information output (video systems, gamma scans ...) • Installation of a test unit capable to investigate high capacity devices that will came to market in the upcoming years. • Installation of a test unit capable to examine principle research targets with standard capacity devices Traditional Research Idea

PROSPECTUS

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