Driving Performance in the Global Chemical Industry
Chemical producers today face a complex mix of pressures from evolving safety standards and energy efficiency goals to ensuring agile production and workforce enablement. Emerson brings a unique combination of global reach, deep domain expertise, and a broad technology portfolio to help you meet these challenges head-on. Whether you're modernizing legacy infrastructure or scaling up for new demand, Emerson delivers the tools and insights to help you operate with confidence and precision.
What We Help You Achieve
Rising costs and tightening environmental regulations demand smarter resource management. Emerson’s automation and control solutions help reduce energy and water consumption, minimize waste, and maintain high product quality, so you can meet sustainability targets without sacrificing throughput or reliability.
Market volatility and shifting customer needs require production systems that can adapt quickly. Emerson’s scalable technologies, from control valves to advanced automation platforms, enable flexible manufacturing strategies that support faster changeovers, improved batch control, and cost-effective operations.
Process safety is more than compliance, it’s foundational to operational integrity. Emerson helps chemical producers implement layered protection strategies, including advanced monitoring, alarm management, safety instrumented systems (SIS), and pressure relief solutions, to reduce risk and protect people, assets, and the environment.
Unplanned downtime erodes productivity and profitability. Emerson’s asset management and predictive diagnostics solutions extend visibility to both critical and non-critical equipment, helping you prevent failures, optimize maintenance, and sustain high performance across your facility.
By the Numbers: Chemicals at Emerson
of ammonia capacity growth required to 2050
Cycle-tested solenoid valve designs
Contamination-free with media filtration pressure regulation
Powder Discharge System Valve Challenges
Cycle Frequency
Automated valves in powder discharge applications must be capable of operating at high speed and high frequency. Open or close speeds are typically required to be less than 1 second per inch, with more than 600 cycles per day.
This places significant demand not only on valve components but also requires a highly engineered actuator. These actuators must be constructed of hardened materials, optimized springs, bearings and seals. Actuators must also incorporate cushioning to eliminate excessive shock load.
Powder Ingress
Polyethylene and polypropylene powders can be some of the most challenging media for valves to handle. The fine powder particles can enter cavities between the ball and seat. Over a short period, this powder can accumulate and compact to prevent sealing and even seize the valve.
Poorly designed valves with imprecisely machined components and ineffective seals can accelerate powder accumulation and inevitable valve or actuator failure.
Component Wear
Powder discharge system valve operating conditions combine high speed, frequent cycling with abrasive polyethylene or polypropylene powder particles. These conditions result in component wear being a leading failure mode.
Poorly designed or specified valves in this application will experience scratching of the ball and seat as well as degradation of the bearings, seals and springs. This damage can cause premature failure of the valve that will require downtime and maintenance.
Downtime Risk
The reliability of your powder discharge system valves is of critical importance to the profitability of your operations. When sealing is ineffective, powder quality is compromised resulting in costly waste and reprocessing. And when these valves fail, the reactor must be shut down which halts downstream processes.
In addition, some spare parts and replacement valves can come at a high cost with long lead times, escalating downtime and maintenance budgets.
Solutions in Action for Reducing Emissions and Energy
Heat Exchangers
Meeting your performance goals means accurately tracking product inventory and product movements. At the same time, tanks and tank farms present their own unique safety and compliance challenges. Emerson offers solutions to fully automate your storage systems, making it easier to manage inventory, gauge tank levels, adhere to regulations, and integrate data from the field into your enterprise planning efforts.
Distillation Columns
Feed variability, temperature changes, and pressure fluctuations can upset distillation processes. Over-purifying leads to higher energy usage and cost while unreliable equipment can lead to slowdowns or shutdowns. Emerson’s distillation solutions can help you keep your product on spec with advanced sensors, transmitters, and process control technology to provide predictive diagnostics and optimized process control for a more profitable and energy efficient distillation operation.
Boilers
Boilers and other combustion processes are key components of industrial production. Subpar operation results in increased fuel costs and emissions, and also negatively affects production quality and throughput across the site. Emerson’s automation technologies and combustion process experts help address boiler and combustion process issues using a holistic improvement approach to deliver long-lasting reliability, low costs, and optimal process performance.
Steam
We recognize just how critical steam temperature control is to the safe and economical operation of your plant—and how difficult it can be to manage accurately.
Emerson’s broad portfolio of steam solutions includes thermodynamic, thermostatic, and mechanical steam traps; blow-off and blowdown valves for removing sludge or dissolved solids from the boiler drum; gauges for monitoring the boiler drum water level, and automatic recirculation control (ARC) valves for protecting the boiler feed pump. Our experts can recommend solutions to ensure optimal operation and enhance energy efficiency.
Tanks
Meeting your performance goals means accurately tracking product inventory and product movements. At the same time, tanks and tank farms present their own unique safety and compliance challenges. Emerson offers solutions to fully automate your storage systems, making it easier to manage inventory, gauge tank levels, adhere to regulations, and integrate data from the field into your enterprise planning efforts.
