On-line identification and nonlinear control of an industrial pH process

The control of pH for industrial processes is a highly nonlinear and challenging problem, especially when the nonlinearity is unknown and time-varying. In this work, a controller is developed and implemented for an industrial pH process with unknown chemical composition. The method used is an application of a general algorithm for pH processes, which is based on a representation of the nonlinearity that leads to on-line identification of a small number of parameters. The results show good performance of the pH control algorithm under normal operating conditions and satisfactory performance during several unusual hardware or process problems.