Blasch Precision Ceramics offers a suite of innovative solutions for the refining and chemical processing industries to enhance plant reliability and improve process performance.
VectorWallsâ: Keen attention must be paid to the basic "3 Ts" of combustion -- time, temperature and turbulence -- in the Sulphur Recovery Unit (SRU) Reaction Furnace (RF) to facilitate key reactions and the destruction of contaminants, including ammonia. Internal structures such as choke rings and checker walls are often used to enhance the mixing and temperature in the RF.
Checker walls can have a high failure rate, resulting in large economic losses. With a choke ring, a large portion of the flow jets through the center of the ring, not meeting the minimum residence time requirements for key reactions. Blasch's HexWalls and VectorWalls are specifically designed to address these issues.
These walls consist of blocks that are stacked dry and mechanically engaged through a series of tabs and slots, making the wall very stable. No mortar is used between the blocks, allowing the interlocking assembly to accommodate thermal expansion and contraction. The VectorWall significantly enhances mixing in the RF through the addition of a vectoring hood to the HexWall design. Other key benefits include:
Reliability/operational:
- Much better structural integrity and uptimes.
- Ease of installation and reduced downtime.
- Ease of operation -- higher temperatures reduce or eliminate preheating/co-firing.
- Unique geometry reflects radiant heat and protects tube sheet.
Process performance:
- Higher throughputs via increased residence time.
- Environmental benefits -- low NOx, better ammonia, hydrocarbon and Benzene, Toluene, Xylene (BTX) destruction.
These walls have been successfully deployed at well over 100 SRUs, including sizes over 1,000 tons per day. Large SRUs with checker wall stability challenges and requiring adequate temperatures for ammonia/BTX destruction particularly benefit from these advanced SRU RF internals. The VectorWall has also been deployed in sulphuric acid plants to effect a more compact furnace design and also reduce NOx, a concern in sulphuric acid regeneration plants.
Ferrules: Blasch's boiler tube ferrules are pre-engineered for each boiler tube installation to help protect the tube sheet from failure and costly downtime. They are properly sized, accurately molded and completely wrapped with all required fiber insulation. Castable refractory is not necessary between the ceramic ferrule, resulting in large savings in installation and curing time. Furthermore, by separating the ferrule head and stem, the company's two-piece ferrules remove stress from the concentration point where the two connect in a one-piece design, enabling enhanced thermal expansion tolerance.
The heat flux just downstream of the ferrule outlet in a waste heat boiler (WHB) is many times that in the zone of well-developed flow because of flow channel discontinuity. This often leads to WHB tube failures and costly downtimes. Blasch has helped develop an improved ferrule design that eliminates this flow discontinuity. This design has provided reliable operation for over 10 years at a U.S. Gulf Coast refinery that was previously experiencing run lengths at times of under one year.
Air Grid Nozzles for fluid catalytic cracking units: Blasch's highly abrasion-resistant FCC Air Grid Nozzles far outlast traditional high-alloy steel or even other ceramics. This helps optimize catalyst efficiencies, maximize cat-cracker life and eliminate replacement costs traditionally experienced with alternate air grid nozzles.
StaBloxâ Steam Methane Reformer (SMR) Tunnel System: This offers several reliability and operational advantages compared to conventional designs. The StaBlox system provides extremely fast and easy installation, saving precious downtime and installation costs. This design offers improved SMR tunnel structural reliability, resulting in less distortion and cracking, thus providing near-uniform flow along the length of each tunnel. Key benefits include preserved conversion efficiency and reduced tube hotspots that cause costly preliminary SMR tube deterioration.
For more information, visit www. blaschceramics.com or call (800) 550-5768.
