Process Information & Control History
UOP’s first analytical and control instrument group was formed
in 1959 with the mission to develop on-line analyzers for internal
pilot plant applications. Before long, refiners displayed a keen interest
in these analyzers and thus, in the early 1960s, the commercial side
of the group was born. The group’s first products included boiling
range monitors, octane analyzers, HF alkylation level equipment, chloride
monitors, iso/normal paraffin analyzers, and BF3 analyzers – all
of which were sold to refiners. As a result, the group became a supplier
of key analyzer and instrumentation equipment that, at the time, was
not available on the open market.
In the late 1960s, the group began marketing analyzer and controller products
under the Monirex trademark. Consistent with its mission, the group began developing
specialty control equipment for UOP processes. The group commercialized the digital
pump-around controller for UOP’s Sorbex processes, designed to work seamlessly
with the previously-developed rotary valve that eventually became part of the
same equipment package.
In the 1980s, the group began supplying PLC-based control systems to control
the CCR regenerator in Platforming units. The group also added continuous hydrogen
and moisture analyzers, catalyst samplers, and closed sampling systems to its
product line. In the early 1990s UOP's Process Plants Systems & Equipment
(PPS&E) department continued to market these products to the industry. Since
the group's product offerings had now gone well beyond the analyzer arena, the
department's name was changed again to Process Information & Controls (PIC),
the name which stands today. Today, the group focuses its energies exclusively
on control systems, while maintaining the same spirit of innovation that gave
birth to its earliest incarnation more than 40 years ago.
For more detailed information on PIC, click on the following link:
PIC - Specialty Control Systems
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