PLC-based temperature controller applied to a distiller of essential oils by water-steam drag

The size of the world market for essential oils has been constantly growing in the last decade, with an increase of between 10% and 15% of production per year. Among the most used techniques to extract essential oils is distillation by water-steam drag, however to guarantee safety in terms of work accidents, and, in order to homogenize the quality of the extracted oil, there is evidence of the need for these processes to have an automatic temperature controller, which governs the process. Based on the previous problem, the objective of the present project is to develop an architecture for automatic regulation of temperature in processes of extraction of essential oils. As a result of the present project, a prototype temperature controller was implemented and its behavior was evaluated in a laboratory distiller. In the evaluation of the behavior of the temperature controller, a rise time (Tr) of approximately 15 min., settling time (Ts) greater than 40 min., and steady state error (Ess) less than 2 °C were obtained.