Better Moisture Control in Coke Manufacturing- a Case Study

The purpose of coke quenching is to quench the incandescent coke in the hot car using intense water sprays covering entire cross-section of the red hot coke bed and preventing it from burning, at the same time to obtain coke of uniform and minimum deviations in coke moisture. This case study presents a simple approach of developing a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to reduce the variation in moisture in Coke by analyzing past data and using Cause and Effect diagram and critically analyzing the contribution of different factors in introducing variation in moisture. The pre and post SOP implementation results are analyzed statistically to ensure that the difference in variance of moisture content is statistically significant. After implementing the action plan for one quarter, overwhelming results were noticed. The standard deviation of moisture on day to day basis has reduced from 2.5% to 1.0%.