Computers and Chemical Engineering 108 (2018) 372–381

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Computers and Chemical Engineering

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Full Length Article

Model-based estimation and control of interface level in a two-phase

vertical decanter: A case study of palm-oil/water system
Wirachai Chonwattana a,b , Chanin Panjapornpon a,b,∗ , Atthasit Tawai c ,
Tanawadee Dechakupt d
a
Department of Chemical Engineering, Center of Excellence on Petrochemicals and Materials Technology, Faculty of Engineering, Kasetsart University,
Bangkok 10900, Thailand
b
The Center for Advanced Studies in Industrial Technology, Kasetsart University, Bangkok 10900, Thailand
c
Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering, The Sirindhorn International Thai-German Graduate School of Engineering, King Mongkut’s
University of Technology North Bangkok, Bangkok 10800, Thailand
d
Department of Industrial Chemistry, Faculty of Applied Science, King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok, Bangkok 10800, Thailand

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Separation of two immiscible liquids by a decanter is an important unit operation widely used in petro-
Received 7 April 2017 chemical processes. However, fluctuations in the feed stream create a difficulty in achieving the desired
Received in revised form 10 October 2017 product by such a unit due to the limitations of interface detection and entrainment of heavy phase into
Accepted 18 October 2017
a light phase. This research proposes techniques for estimating and controlling the interface position.
Available online 18 October 2017
The interface position is calculated by using information from an ultrasonic sensor and a pressure trans-
ducer. An input/output linearizing controller is applied to control the interface position and total liquid
Keywords:
height by adjusting the outflows of each liquid phase. A real-time estimator predicts the feed fraction
Two-phase vertical decanter
Input/output linearization
that cannot be measured directly. The proposed method is evaluated through servo and regulatory tests
Interface estimation with a bench-scale palm-oil/water decanter. The experimental results show that the developed method
Model-based control forces outputs to desired setpoints effectively despite the presence of feed disturbances.
Advanced process control © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Palm-oil/water separation

1. Introduction affected, leading to entrainment of heavy liquid in a light product.

A decanter is a common separation unit in which separation of
immiscible or partially immiscible liquids is performed using grav-
ity. It is widely used in various continuous processes, e.g., as a crude
oil/water separation unit, in a wastewater treatment process, as a
biodiesel/water separation unit, as a palm oil recovery unit and as
an ethylene dichloride/aqueous caustic soda separation unit. There
are several factors affecting separation efficiency of a decanter. A
sufficient density difference between two liquids is required. Oper-
ating parameters such as feed composition and feed rate must be
approximately constant. The interface position should be appropri-
ately maintained to have enough thickness in each liquid layer and
adequate settling time. It is practically controlled by taking off the
heavy liquid with a use of a siphon tube. With upsets in the feed flow
or feed composition to the decanter, the interface position can be
∗ Corresponding author at: Department of Chemical Engineering, Center of Excel-
lence on Petrochemicals and Materials Technology, Faculty of Engineering, Kasetsart
University, Bangkok 10900, Thailand.
E-mail address: fengcnp@ku.ac.th (C. Panjapornpon).
A floating element, a capacitance probe, an ultrasonic wave sen-
sor and a pressure sensor are typical level measurement sensors
for a single-phase liquid with constant density. These instruments
cannot be applied directly to two-phase liquids since the system
consists of inhomogeneous fluids with a difference in liquid den-
sities. One cannot see the liquid level due to the interposition of a
solid wall. Furthermore, the total liquid and interface levels of the
decanter do not naturally settle out to the steady state because the
levels are managed by adjusting the decanter outflows. The pro-
cess with such behavior is known as an integrating process, and
it is sensitive to input disturbances. The decanter levels may get
an excessive movement and unregulated if a controller gain is not
tuned properly (Ali and Majhi, 2010; Liu and Gao, 2011; Jin and Liu,
2014). Disturbances in the decanter feed flow and the feed com-
position could lead to a fluctuation of the interface position and
degrade the controller performance. Therefore, an efficient inter-
face measurement and effective interface control play an important
role in the decanter operation.
For monitoring the interface level of a multiphase separa-
tor, techniques such as a single-electrode probe, a segmented
capacitance probe, and a full electrical capacitance tomography

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compchemeng.2017.10.022
0098-1354/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 W. Chonwattana et al. / Computers and Chemical Engineering 108 (2018) 372–381
Nomenclature
A Cross-sectional area, m2
F, Fo , Fw Volumetric flow rate of mixture feed, oil and water,
m3 /s
f, h Nonlinear function
g Gravitational acceleration, m/s2
H Total liquid height, m
h Nonlinear function
hw Interface level, m
M Transformation matrix
pg Total gauge pressure, Pa
u Vector of manipulated inputs
x Vector of state variables
y Vector of output variables
ỹ Vector of outputs based on the open-loop model
Greek letters
v Vector of the setpoints
ˇ Tuning parameter, s
 Tuning parameter, s
␣ Water mass fraction
 Vector of predicted outputs
 Time-varying parameters
ˆ Estimated time-varying parameter
¯ Nominal value of time-varying parameter
O Density of oil, kg/m3
W Density of water, kg/m3
Nonlinear function
system have been reported (Jaworski and Meng, 2009). Skeie and
Halstensen (2010) estimated the interface level by using multi-
pressure sensors and a calibration function. The interface position is
detected when a peak in the pressure profiles at the stagnant condi-
tion occurs. The prediction accuracy depends on a distance between
adjacent sensors and the numbers of installed pressure sensors; the
more sensors, the better the interface prediction. Jampana et al.
(2010) and Narang et al. (2015) implemented a video-based tech-
nique to detect and control the interface between bitumen froth
and middlings in a separation cell. Video frames obtained from
a sight-glass camera are processed into black and white pictures
and consequently used for calculating the height of each layer.
Narang et al. (2015) applied the model predictive control and inter-
nal model control with a first-order continuous output error model
from experimental data. Fernandes et al. (2013) also applied the
image-based detection technique and a proportional-integral (PI)
feedback controller for monitoring and controlling the interface
level of a kerosene/water system in a laboratory-scale settler. A
first-order transfer function model is used for selecting tuning
parameters. Despite some literature on the estimation of interface
level, there have been little works addressing an interface control
of a decanter (Jampana et al., 2010; Fernandes et al., 2013; Narang
et al., 2015). The control methods by Jampana et al. (2010) and
Fernandes et al. (2013) lie on empirical models while the MPC from
Narang et al. (2015) uses an empirical linear model. The control per-
formances of these methods are strongly affected by quality and
range of training data. In addition, the accuracy of interface esti-
mation by the vision-based technique is restricted by the location
of sensor installation, the light source to record a video and the
alignment between a detection line and sensor.
In this work, a new technique for the interface estimation and a
model-based control system for a coupled control of a total liquid
height and an interface position in a continuous vertical decanter
are proposed. The interface position is estimated by reconstructed
373
information from the pressure sensor and the ultrasonic sensor
measuring the total developed pressure and total liquid height in
the decanter, respectively. The proposed control system is formu-
lated by using a first-principles dynamic model of the decanter. It
consists of an input/output (I/O) linearizing controller to enforce
both outputs to track the setpoints and a time-varying parameter
estimator by a dynamic-inversion-based parameter estimation to
estimate an unmeasured water mass fraction.
The proposed interface estimation provides several key advan-
tages compared with other methods. It is simple to implement
in a real-time control application due to the use of an algebraic
relation along with information from two sensors; the pressure
transducer and ultrasonic sensor. It also provides good estimate
results without any requirement concerning the light sources and
installed position in the vision-based technique (Jampana et al.,
2010; Fernandes et al., 2013; Narang et al., 2015) or the num-
ber of installed multiple pressure sensors affecting the prediction
accuracy (Skeie and Halstensen, 2010). The proposed control sys-
tem provides a fast setpoint tracking and effectively compensates
for disturbances in the feed stream to the decanter resulting from
cooperating the I/O linearizing controller with a real-time estima-
tor of the water mass fraction in the feed. It also has few tuning
parameters and no requirement of optimization.
2. Description and mathematical modeling of the vertical
decanter system
The vertical decanter system used as a case study in this
work is a bench-scale unit in the Model-based Control Laboratory,
Department of Chemical Engineering, Kasetsart University, which
is designed for separating a continuous feed of palm-oil/water
mixtures: see Fig. 1(a) for the laboratory vertical decanter used
for palm-oil/water separation process. An acrylic decanter 0.15 m
in diameter and 1 m in height is designed for separating palm-
oil/water mixtures. The capacity of the decanter is approximately
20 L. There are two exit outlets located at 0.05 m and 0.70 m for
the water and the palm-oil, respectively. A feed line and an ultra-
sonic sensor are installed at the top of the decanter, while a pressure
transducer is installed at the bottom. The mixture feed line made of
an acrylic tube with 0.008 m in diameter is installed, and the end of
the tube is at the height of 0.45 m from the bottom of the decanter.
A scheme of the vertical decanter system is shown in Fig. 1(b). The
palm-oil/water mixture is continuously fed to the vertical decanter
by using peristaltic pumps, and it then separates into a water layer
and an oil layer. The ultrasonic sensor measures the total height of
the liquids in the decanter, while the pressure transducer measures
the total developed static pressure. These measured data are used
together with a decanter model to estimate the interface level. The
total liquid height and the interface level of the liquids are con-
trolled by adjusting the outflows of oil and water. For the model
simplification, the following assumptions are made:
(1) Palm-oil/water mixtures fed to the decanter are immiscible and
dispersed uniformly.
(2) Densities of palm oil and water are constant.
(3) There is a sufficient difference between the two liquid densities
for a phase separation.
(4) The decanter has a sufficient retention time to allow the immis-
cible mixtures to separate into two layers.
(5) The emulsion layer between the two liquids formed in the reac-
tor is not considered in the developed model.
374 W. Chonwattana et al. / Computers and Chemical Engineering 108 (2018) 372–381

Fig. 1. Bench-scale vertical decanter unit for palm-oil/water separation.

2.1. Mass balance on water phase in the vertical decanter Table 1

Parameter values and nominal operating conditions for the palm-oil/water decanter
system.
Performing a mass balance on the water phase gives the follow-
ing: Parameter Value

F 1980 mL/min
d (w hw A)
= ˛Fmix − FW W (1) Fo 630 mL/min
dt Fw 1350 mL/min
where hW is the interface level; F and FW are the flow rates of the o 915 kg/m3
w 1009 kg/m3
mixed feed and water, respectively; A is the cross-sectional area of
˛ 0.688
the decanter; ␣ is the water mass fraction; W is the density of the A 1.76 × 10−2 m2
water; and mix is the density of the mixed feed, which is defined
as follows:
fraction (␣) is the time-varying parameter. The Eqs. (3) and (5) are
mix = (1 − ˛)O + ˛W (2)
nonlinear because the water mass fraction exists in the nonlinear
where O is the density of the palm oil. form. By managing the outflows, the dynamics of both levels are
By substituting Eq. (2) into Eq. (1), the dynamics of the water constantly changed due to an imbalance between the inflow and
level can be expressed by outflows. Note that the process parameters and their values are
dhW 1
 O
 given in Table 1.
= ˛2 F + (1 − ˛) · ˛F − FW (3)
dt A W
3. Development of the controller system for the vertical
2.2. Total mass balance in the vertical decanter decanter system

The overall mass balance in the decanter system is as follows: The control objective of this study is to regulate the interface
level (y1 = hW ) and the total liquid height (y2 = H) by adjusting the
d(O A(H − hW ) + W AhW ) outflows of the water layer (u1 = FW ) and the palm-oil layer (u2 = FO ).
= Fmix − (FO O + FW W ) (4)
dt The water mass fraction ( = ␣) is a time-varying unmeasured
where H is the total liquid height and FO is the palm-oil flow rate. parameter in the system. A schematic diagram of the proposed
By substituting Eqs. (2) and (3) into Eq. (4), the dynamics of the control system, which consists of the I/O linearizing controller
total liquid height can be rewritten as and the parameter estimator and compensator, is shown in Fig. 2.
Details of the control system are given in the following subsec-
dH 1 (2 + O2)
= (F · (1 − ˛(1 − ˛)) · (2 − W ) − FO − FW ) (5) tions.
dt A W O
The interface level (hW ) and the total liquid height (H) are the con- 3.1. Input/output linearizing controller
trolled variables, while the palm-oil flow rate (FO ) and water flow
rate (FW ) are the manipulated variables. In operation, the mixed I/O linearization is a method that a relationship of the nonlinear
feed flow (F) is the measurable disturbance, and the water mass behavior between input and output is transformed to be a linear
 W. Chonwattana et al. / Computers and Chemical Engineering 108 (2018) 372–381 375

Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of the proposed control system.

relation. This is achieved by repeatedly differentiating the output y The I/O linearization in Eq. (8) with the decanter dynamic model
with respect to time until it is explicitly related to the input u, which becomes
is called relative order. A review of I/O linearization approach can
1 O
be found in (Henson and Seborg, 1997; Kanter et al., 2001). ˇ1 ( ( 2 F + (1 − )F − u1 )) + y1 = v1
A W
A nonlinear process can be represented in the general form: (10)
1 (2 + O2)
ˇ2 ( (F · (1 − (1 − )) · (2 − W ) − u1 − u2 )) + y2 = v2
A O W
ẋ = f (x, u, )
(6)
y = h(x) By analytically solving Eq. (10) for u1 and u2 , the controllers can
be expressed by

where x = [x1 , ..., xn ]T is the vector of state variables, u = [u1 , ..., um ]T is

 o   A

u1 = 2 F +  1− F − (v1 − y1 )
the vector of inputs, y = [y1 , ..., ym ]T is the vector of outputs,  = [ 1 , w ˇ1
...,  p ]T is the vector of time-varying parameters, f and h are the    (11)
vector of nonlinear functions, and ẋ = dx/dt.
  2 + 2
w o A
u2 = F 1 −  1 −  2− − u1 − (v2 − y2 )
In the context of problem examined here, the following would be o w ˇ2
the definitions of the variables; y = [hW H]T , u = [FW FO ]T , and  = [␣].
The mixed feed flow (F) is the measurable disturbance. The decanter The compact form of the I/O linearizing controllers in Eq. (11)
system described in Section 2 is an integrating process of which the can be denoted in the following form:
system dynamics are not a function of outputs, and the numbers
u= (, v) (12)
of states and outputs are equal (n = m = 2). The compact form of the
decanter dynamics in Eqs. (3) and (5) can be written as follows
3.2. Parameter estimator and output compensator

ẏ = f (u, ) (7) The studied decanter system is the integrating process which
is sensitive to input disturbances. Thus, the following form of the
The closed-loop responses for the outputs are requested in the compensator is introduced to compensate the output offset from
form as follows: unmeasured disturbances and model mismatch
 
r
ỹ˙ = f u, ˆ
(ˇD + 1) y = v (8)
1
(13)
˙ = diag (ỹ − )
where D is a differential operator (i.e.D = d/dt), v is the vector of the 
setpoints, ˇ is the vector of positive tuning parameters setting the
v = ysp − y + 
speed of the closed-loop response and r are the relative orders of
the outputs. The smaller the values of ˇare, the faster the closed- where ỹ is the vector of predicted outputs by the open-loop model
loop responses of the outputs obtained. The relative order of the with the time-varying parameter (), ˆ  denote the vector of pre-
output i with respect to the inputs are denoted by ri , where ri is the dicted outputs under the first-order low-pass filter,  is the vector
smallest integer such that ∂[dri yi /dtri ]/∂u =
/ 0. It is straightforward of positive tuning parameters and v is the vector of compensated set
that the relative orders of the outputs are both equal to one (r1 , points. The tuning of  necessarily has to balance between a con-
r2 = 1): vergence speed and a noise reduction. A smaller value of  results
in a faster convergence in the estimation but it also induces a higher
r = 1; ẏ1 = f1 (u1 , ␪) noise in the predicted output. The desired setpoint has been com-
(9) pensated by a deviation between the filtered estimate and actual
ẏ2 = f2 (u1 , u2 , ␪) outputs. By substituting the decanter model into Eq. (13), the out-
376 W. Chonwattana et al. / Computers and Chemical Engineering 108 (2018) 372–381

put compensator can be expressed as follows Therefore, the parameter estimator for the decanter described
by Eq. (17) can be expressed as follows

ˆ = 1 (ˆ 2 F + O (1
ỹ˙ 1 = f1 (u1 , ) ˆ − u1 )
ˆ − )F ˆ
F ˆ O (1 − 2)
A W (2 + )
∂f A W
(2 + O2) ( )=[ ]
ˆ = 1 (F · (1 − (1
ỹ˙ 2 = f2 (u1 , u2 , ) ˆ − ))
ˆ · (2 − W ) − u1 − u2 ) ∂ˆ F (2 + O 2)
A O W (−1 + 2)ˆ · (2 − W ) (19)
A O W
1 T −1 T ¯
(ỹ1 − 1 )/1 − f1 (u1 , )
˙ 1 = (ỹ1 − 1 ) ∂ f ∂ f ∂ f
1 ˆ = ¯ + [( ) ( )] ( ) [ ]
1 ∂ˆ ∂ˆ ∂ˆ ¯
(ỹ2 − 2 )/2 − f2 (, u1 , u2 , )
˙ 2 = (ỹ2 − 2 )
2
v1 = y1sp − y1 + 1 3.3. Interface estimation for the palm-oil/water decanter

v2 = y2sp − y2 + 2
As mentioned previously, the interface level in the decanter
depends on the mixture feed rate, feed fraction, and outflows
of palm oil and water. In practice, the water mass fraction of
feed stream parameter cannot be measured directly, and it has
been changed with the operating condition. To improve the pre-
diction accuracy, a time-varying parameter estimator based on a
dynamic-inversion-based technique is introduced. The dynamic
inversion-based parameter estimation is the method that performs
a least square error to calculate the process parameters at each time
interval by left inversion of the process model. It has been received
much attention (Tatiraju and Soroush, 1998; Panjapornpon and
Soroush, 2007; Ding, 2014) because of its simplicity and efficiency
to use for estimating unknown time-varying process parameters
in real time. A review of the dynamic-inversion-based estimation
technique used in this work can be found in Panjapornpon and
Soroush (2007).
For each time interval, the estimated time-varying parameter
ˆ is calculated by assuming the vector of inputs (u) to be constant
()
over the time. The open-loop model in Eq. (13) is approximated by
the first-order Taylor expansion around the nominal value of the
time-varying parameter (), ¯ which is
    ∂f ˆ ¯
ỹ˙ = f u, ˆ ≈ f u, ¯ + ( − )
∂ˆ
 
where f u, ¯ is the nominal open-loop output response and
∂f ˆ ¯ is the deviation of output by a change of time-varying
( − )
∂ˆ
parameter from the nominal value. If ŷis forced to go to y asymp-
totically, ˆ will converge to  and ŷ equal to ỹ. Hence
The interface level (y1 ) cannot be measured in real time directly.
(14) Thus, a new method to estimate the interface position is proposed
by using a total static pressure of the liquids in the decanter and
measurements from the ultrasonic sensor and pressure transducer.
A relation of total static pressure of the liquids can be described by
pg = W ghW + o g(H − hW ) (20)
By solving Eq. (20) for the interface level (hW ), the interface
position can be calculated by the relation in Eq. (21) and the mea-
surements from ultrasonic sensor and pressure transducer.
pg − O gy2
y1 = (21)
g(W − O )
4. Experimental results
4.1. Experimental setup
To evaluate the real-time control performance of the system,
the bench-scale, vertical decanter unit described in Section 2 is
connected to an embedded device NI myRIO-1900 (National Instru-
ments, later called “myRIO target”). The myRIO target allows a user
to embed a control algorithm into the hardware with the use of Lab-
VIEW. Furthermore, the user can access it via a wireless network to
monitor the process.
As regards the process instruments, the total liquid height is
measured by an ultrasonic sensor (a level span of 0.20–0.80 m),
while the static pressure of the liquid is measured by a pressure
(15)
transducer (a pressure span of 0–0.3 bar). The mixture feed pre-
pared by supplying fresh water and palm oil streams to a mixing
tee is continuously fed to the middle of the vertical decanter. It
then gradually separates into two layers: a palm-oil layer and a
water layer. The water mass fraction of the mixture feed (␣) can
be varied by adjusting the speed of peristaltic pumps (a flow rate
200–6000 mL/min) for each supplied stream. Levels of palm-oil and
water layers are managed by the peristaltic pumps (a flow rate

 1 0–2700 mL/min). The interface level is operated within the range

  ∂f of 0.40–0.60 m due to a restriction of the outflow nozzle locations.
f u, ¯ + (ˆ − )
¯ = diag (ỹ − ) (16)
∂ˆ  The nominal setpoint of interface level is maintained at 0.50 m.
The quality of input signals is in practice an important factor
affecting real-time control performance. Sampling data of analog
ˆ the parameter estimator can
By rearranging the equation for ,
input signals need to be large enough to reduce the effect of elec-
be expressed by
trical noise. However, the increases in the sampling data rate and
 1  the measured variables result in the significant drop in the calcula-
tion speed of the real-time controller. The myRIO target can manage
ˆ = ¯ + M diag ¯
(ỹ − ) − f (u, ) (17)
 such a problem with the use of its two main components, a real-
time operating system and a field programmable gate array (FPGA).
where M is the transformation matrix defined by A FPGA with a first-in-first-out (FIFO) buffer memory is deployed
for speeding up the data acquisition, while the control algorithm

T
 −1
T of the proposed method written in the LabVIEW program is exe-
∂f ∂f ∂f cuted by the myRIO real-time controller. Measured data from each
M= (18) sensor are acquired with each sampling point taking 100 ␮s, while
∂ˆ ∂ˆ ∂ˆ
a loop time of the control system is executed in 1 s. Thus, direct
 W. Chonwattana et al. / Computers and Chemical Engineering 108 (2018) 372–381 377

Fig. 3. Model prediction and measurement of the interface level.

memory access (DMA) is applied to the myRIO target for synchro-

nizing data transfer between the real-time controller and FPGA.
In experiments, 10000 points of raw data are filtered and subse-
quently averaged for each control loop time so as to calculate the
control action for adjusting the speeds of the palm-oil and water
pumps.

4.2. Experimental results

Fig. 3 shows a plot of interface level. The experiment is the mea-

Fig. 4. Closed-loop responses of (a) interface level (hw ) and (b) total liquid height
sured value of real interface level. The model is the result of the
(H) in the vertical decanter.
differential equation in Eq. (3). The sensor is the result of the alge-
braic equation in Eq. (21). From the results shown in Fig. 3, it is seen
that the developed model and the sensor result are in good agree-
ment with the experimental data with less than three percent error
in the predicted value.
To investigate real-time control performances, the proposed
method under closed-loop response, setpoint tracking and distur-
bances in the mixture feed and water mass fraction are evaluated
with the experiments. The performance of the proposed method
is also compared to those of proportional integral (PI) and linear
quadratic regulator (LQR) for the closed-loop response.
The palm-oil and water flows are operated within a range
of 0 ≤ FO ≤ 2250 mL/min and 0 ≤ FW ≤ 2250 mL/min, respectively.
The tuning parameter values are {ˇ1 = 40 s, ˇ2 = 50 s,  1 = 0.25 s,
 2 = 0.25 s} for the proposed method, {KC1 = −2.6 × 10−3 m2 /s,
 i1 = 1 s, KC2 = −3.4 × 10−3 m2 /s,  i2 = 10 s} for the PI controller, and
{Q = [ 1.2 4; 1.8 7.4 ], R = [ −13 2.7; 0.23 1106 ]} for the LQR
controller. The tuning parameters of the proposed controller are the
best values obtained by trial and error, while the tuning parame-
ters of the LQR controller are those obtained by the optimization
of output tracking reference on Simulink in MATLAB software. The
PI controller is tuned according to the PI tuning method for the
integrating process in Rice and Cooper (2002).

4.2.1. Closed-loop responses

In this section, experimental results of closed-loop step
responses are investigated under the proposed method, the PI con-
troller, and the LQR controller. The process starts at the initial
conditions of hw (0) = 0.42 m and H(0) = 0.55 m, and the setpoints
of the interface level and total liquid height are 0.50 m (hw,sp )
and 0.65 m (Hsp ) respectively. Figs. 4 and 5, show the closed-
loop responses of the outputs and the manipulated inputs profiles
under these conditions and with these controllers. The experimen- Fig. 5. Profiles of (a) water flow rate (FW ) and (b) oil flow rate (FO ) corresponding to
tal results show that the proposed controller successfully forces the closed-loop response of Fig. 4.
both the level interface and total liquid height to the desired set-
378 W. Chonwattana et al. / Computers and Chemical Engineering 108 (2018) 372–381

Table 2
Closed-loop performance under step response.

Controller Output variable Performance index

Settling time Percent ISE

[min] overshoot [%]

PI Interface level, hw >10 7.8 0.31

LQR 5.83 10 0.21
Proposed 2.25 0.9 0.17
PI Total liquid height, H 4.8 1.7 0.62
LQR 3.5 4.6 0.34
Proposed 1.33 0.4 0.27

points faster and with less oscillation compared to the PI and LQR
controllers. The outputs under the PI controller oscillate and move
around the setpoint, especially in the case of the total liquid height
and for some periods of the control action settling at the upper
limit of the oil flow rate. It can be seen that the LQR controller has
the same success for the closed-loop test as the proposed controller,
but it has the excessive control actions, resulting in high overshoot-
ing in the outputs. Table 2 shows and compares the performances
of both the proposed method, PI controller and LQR controller for
various indexes. The results show that the proposed method has
overall better performance compared to the PI and LQR controllers.
The small oscillations of the calculated interface level are caused by
measurement noise which is due to signal amplification, as well as
the pressure swing due to the movement of liquids in the decanter.
Although the LQR controller has some slightly better closed-loop
performance in the settling time and ISE indexes compared to the
PI controller, it shows the worse performance in the percentage of
the overshoot index. The excessive control actions of the LQR con- Fig. 6. Closed-loop responses of (a) interface level (hw ) and (b) total liquid height
troller could cause a pump damage or failure. Thus, the PI controller (H) under the setpoint tracking.

is used as a compared case for the servo and regulatory tests.

4.2.2. Setpoint tracking performance

The process starts at the initial conditions of hw (0) = 0.45 m and
H(0) = 0.65 m for the setpoint tracking test. Figs. 6 and 7 show the
results of the output responses and the control actions under set-
point tracking. In the test, the outputs are designed to track a
sequence of step setpoints: [hw,sp , Hsp ] = [0.45 m, 0.65 m] initially,
Hsp = 0.70 m at 11.5 min, hw,sp = 0.50 m at 25 min, hw,sp = 0.45 m at
40 min. The proposed method successfully tracks setpoint changes
in both the total liquid height and interface level to obtain the
desired values. To increase the total liquid height, the proposed
controller forces the total liquid height to the desired setpoint and
stabilizes the interface level by instantly decreasing the oil flow rate
and by increasing the water flow rate for a while. For the increase in
the setpoint of the interface level, the proposed controller decreases
the water flow rate so as to cause a rise in the interface level and
simultaneously increases the oil flow rate so as to stabilize the total
liquid height; the actions are of course opposite for a step decrease
in the interface level.

4.2.3. Regulatory performance

For the case of the step disturbance in the water mass fraction,
the setpoints of the interface level and the total liquid height are
kept constant at hw,sp = 0.45 m and Hsp = 0.65 m, respectively. The
process starts at hw (0) = 0.45 m and H(0) = 0.65 m. The water mass
fraction, initially set at  = 0.65, and the mixture feed rate, initially
set at F = 2100 mL/min, are changed to  = 0.68 and F = 1980 mL/min
at 5 min, according to Fig. 8. The experimental results of the output
responses and the control actions are shown in Figs. 9 and 10. It
can be seen that, when a step disturbance is applied to the water
mass fraction, the proposed method successfully stabilizes both the Fig. 7. Profiles of (a) water flow rate (FW ) and (b) oil flow rate (FO ) corresponding to
interface level and the total liquid height and rejects the distur- the closed-loop response of Fig. 6.
bance within 1 min by decreasing the oil flow rate. Figs. 11 and 12
 W. Chonwattana et al. / Computers and Chemical Engineering 108 (2018) 372–381 379

Fig. 8. Profiles of (a) mixture feed (F) and (b) water mass fraction (). Fig. 10. Profiles of (a) water flow rate (FW ) and (b) oil flow rate (FO ) corresponding
to the closed-loop response of Fig. 9.

Table 3
Closed-loop performance under disturbance.

Controller Output variable Settling time Percent ISE

[min] overshoot [%]

Under disturbance in feed fraction

PI Interface level, hw 0 0.9 0.0018
Proposed 0 0.8 0.0015
PI Total liquid height, H 5.33 3.4 0.0407
Proposed 0.58 0.9 0.0010

Under disturbance in mixture feed

PI Interface level, hw 7.25 1.5 0.0053
Proposed 0 1.3 0.0035
PI Total liquid height, H 1.58 1.8 0.0062
Proposed 0 0.7 0.001

show the experimental results of the output responses and the

Fig. 9. Closed-loop responses of (a) interface level (hw ) and (b) total liquid height
(H) under the disturbance in feed fraction.
profile of control actions under step disturbance in the mixture
feed; a change is made from F = 1980 mL/min to F = 2280 mL/min
at 7 min, according to Fig. 12. Due to characteristics of the inte-
grating process, the disturbances in the decanter feed flow could
cause a degradation of the controller performance. The experimen-
tal results show that the proposed method performs well in keeping
the interface level and total liquid height at the desired values with
smooth and low oscillations.
For the PI controller, although it can also reject the applied dis-
turbances in the mixture feed and feed fraction, it takes a long time
to reach the setpoint. The outputs under the PI controller have
high overshoot and move around the desired setpoints. Table 3
shows and compares the performance of the proposed method
and PI controller under the both cases of the step disturbance.
The results show that the proposed controller has better all per-
formance compared to the PI controller. The proposed controller
provides a lower ISE values, percent overshoot and shorter set-
380 W. Chonwattana et al. / Computers and Chemical Engineering 108 (2018) 372–381
Fig. 11. Closed-loop responses of (a) interface level (hw ) and (b) total liquid height
(H) under the disturbance in the mixture feed.
tling time to reject a disturbance in the feed fraction and mixture
feed.
5. Conclusions
In this work, a case-study application of model-based estimation
and control of the interface level of a bench-scale, palm-oil/water
vertical decanter system has been discussed. The interface posi-
tion was estimated through process information of the pressure
sensor and ultrasonic sensor. The proposed technique is simple
to implement and provides good results in the estimation of the
interface level. To obtain the control system, input/output (I/O) lin-
earization is used along with a parameter estimation. Performances
of the proposed control system are evaluated through setpoint
tracking and the presence of disturbances in the mixture feed.
The experimental results showed that integrating the real-time
estimation of the unmeasured disturbance into the control strat-
egy results in obvious improvement of the control performance
compared to the PI and LQR controllers. Even though fluctuations
in the feed rate or feed composition occur, the proposed con-
troller successfully maintains the interface level at the desired
setpoints, resulting in product separation without any problem of
entrainment of heavy liquid in the light product. The proposed
technique provides a practical solution for monitoring and con-
trol of interface level fluctuations in real-time applications, and
it can be extended to other related applications of liquid–liquid
separation.
Acknowledgments
This research was financially supported by the Institutional
Research Fund Grant (Thailand Research Fund) (IRG5980004), the
Faculty of Engineering at Kasetsart University, the Center for
Fig. 12. Profiles of (a) water flow rate (FW ), (b) oil flow rate (FO ) and (c) mixture feed
(F).
Advanced Studies in Industrial Technology, and the Center of Excel-
lence on Petrochemical and Materials Technology. Support from
these sources is gratefully acknowledged.
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