Suitable conditions for reactor process control in melamine compound process by using design of experiment tool

Abstract

To determine the suitableconditions of the molar ratio of formalin to melamine crystal, theacid-base indicator of melamine crystal, formalin, and water, and volume ofsodium hydroxide for the eactor process in the melamine compound process.These suitable conditions can be used as the fundamental data forcontrolling operations at the reactor to reduce the variation of melaminecompound's curing time. This research starts from selecting the factors, which involve thechange in volume of sodium hydroxide that has an effect on the curing time.Those factors are the molar ratio of formalin to melamine crystal, theacid-base indicator of melamine crystal, formalin, and water. The factorialdesigned experiments for the four factors are performed and can be concludedthat only two factors, which are the molar ratio of formalin to melaminecrystal and the acid-base indicator of melamine crystal, influence thecuring time and there is no interaction effect between the two factors.Consequently, the two- factor factorial designed experiment is employed tofind the suitable conditions by using more levels of the molar ratio andmore replicates. Finally, the confirmation experiment with the hypothesestesting brings about the conclusions that the two curing time mean: andvariances in each condition, resulting from the previous experiments, couldbe reliable to be applied to the melmine compound process. The results of this research can be concluded as the six suitableconditions at the reactor. And these suitable conditions will be appliedto the company's process, leading to the reduction in the curing timevariation from about 30 seconds to about 20 seconds.