Fluorsid

Fluorsid's Cagliari, Sardinia facility produces fluorine compounds — a chemically demanding process where raw material variability presents an inherent control challenge. Fluorine transformation involves high-temperature reactor and kiln operations where deviations in feedstock composition cascade into product quality failures and excessive waste. Manual control strategies, dependent on operator judgment and conventional regulation, lacked the predictive capacity to compensate for continuous variation in incoming raw materials. The consequence was persistent process instability: inconsistent product quality, overconsumption of raw materials and energy, and waste generation significantly above what a tightly controlled process should produce — carrying both economic and environmental costs.

Fluorsid deployed Rockwell Automation's FactoryTalk Analytics PavilionX, a model predictive control (MPC) platform built on predictive machine learning, across the Cagliari plant's reactor and kiln processes. Unlike conventional PID control, PavilionX uses data-driven and first-principles models to calculate optimal control moves across multiple interacting process variables simultaneously — anticipating the effects of raw material variation rather than reacting to them after the fact. The system was integrated into the plant's existing control infrastructure, applying advanced process control across the complete fluorine transformation workflow. By continuously adjusting setpoints based on real-time process state and model predictions, PavilionX keeps reactors and kilns within tighter operating envelopes without requiring constant operator intervention, enabling consistent output even as feedstock quality fluctuates.

The deployment delivered measurable improvements across multiple dimensions of plant performance. The headline outcome was a reduction in chemical waste of more than 50%, achieved through tighter control that minimized off-spec production and raw material overconsumption. Additional outcomes include:

• Process stability: Reactors and kilns now operate within consistently tighter control bands
• Optimized raw material use: Less feedstock consumed compensating for process drift
• Improved product quality: More consistent output meeting specification
• Reduced energy consumption and CO2 emissions: Tighter thermal management in kiln operations lowered both fuel use and associated carbon output

The results demonstrate that process control improvements simultaneously address quality, waste, energy, and sustainability objectives — generating multiple ROI streams from a single deployment.

• In fluorine and specialty chemical production, raw material variability is addressable through MPC — the technology compensates for feedstock inconsistency in real time, reducing reliance on wasteful conservative operating margins.
• Waste reduction, quality improvement, and energy savings are interconnected outcomes of tighter process control, not separate initiatives; MPC deployments should be evaluated on combined impact.
• Sustainability metrics such as CO2 reduction emerge naturally from operational optimization, enabling manufacturers to satisfy both financial and ESG reporting requirements from a single project.
• MPC integration with existing reactor and kiln infrastructure is feasible for mid-market chemical producers — a full greenfield implementation is not a prerequisite.