Real-time remote monitoring and alerting system using low-cost IoT platform for odor control scrubbers

Abstract

In order to minimize unplanned downtime of plant’s equipment, operation and maintenance personnel need to respond quickly to potential problems. This paper presents a technique to enable real-time notifications for operating two existing standalone multi-stage wet scrubbers used to eliminate odors in brewing process. The proposed technique is based on the employment of low-cost Internet-of-Things (IoT) platform to implement a real-time monitoring and alerting system for simultaneous operation with existing control systems of the studied multi-stage wet scrubbers. The implemented monitoring and alerting system at field site consists of eight sensor probes, eight temperature transmitters, two analog-to-digital converters with serial I2C interface, and one Raspberry Pi board. The temperature sensors and transmitters and the converters are used for measuring scrubbing solution temperatures and for converting the 4-20 mA transmitter outputs to be available signals for the Raspberry Pi through I2C bus, respectively. The Raspberry Pi is utilized over the Internet for operating as a web server to serve real-time data for remote client computers, for performing as a database to serve historian data for generating daily and on-demand reports, and for sending alert messages to assigned staffs via LINE Notify. Not only critical process data can then be remotely monitored via the web interface in real time, but also critical process alarms can be notified to rapidly respond. Test results verify that the proposed monitoring and alerting system can function correctly.