Heat Transfer
Full-Length Sleeving for Process Heat Exchanger Tubes
As heat exchangers age, their tube thickness decreases because of erosion, corrosion or a combination of both. Installing thin sleeves in tubes in which the tube walls have become so thin that failure is imminent is a maintenance technique useful…
Improving Biodiesel Processing
Biodiesel, the methyl ester of fatty acids, has been accepted as a renewable-sourced alternative to fossil-derived diesel fuel. Today in many parts of the world, biodiesel is already blended with diesel fuel up to about 5%. Presently the demand for…
Saving Energy In Regenerative Oxidizers
Oxidation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in regenerative thermal oxidizers (RTOs) is the most common process in the chemical process industries (CPI) for removing diluted emissions of VOCs and carbon monoxide from stationary air- pollution sources. Thousands of RTOs operate…
Kettle Troubleshooting
A survey of tower failures [ 1 ] ranks kettle reboilers as the most troublesome reboiler type in the chemical process industries (CPI). Excessive pressure drop in kettle reboiler circuits is the prominent kettle malfunction, causing liquid to back up…
Doing an Energy Audit
Today’s high costs of energy make an energy audit evaluation of process facilities a must. Most plants were designed and built when energy costs were low by today’s standards. This makes facilities that have not been reviewed for energy efficiency…
Maximizing Heat-Transfer Fluid Longevity
Faced with increased workloads and time and budget constraints that often restrict external training support, many chemical process operators are forced to get the most out of their heat transfer system with less help. This article offers recommendations for how…
Biomass Combustion Offers 3-to-1 Fuel Cost Reduction
Among the most pressing concerns for the chemical process industries (CPI) are weathering the global economic recession and dealing with anticipated carbon emissions regulations. Switching from oil and gas to biomass for fuel in a CPI plant is a relatively…
Direct-Fired Heaters: Evaluate Thermal Performance And the Effects of Fouling
Direct-fired heaters find wide application throughout the chemical process industries (CPI) and are common in petroleum refineries, where they are used to preheat petroleum or petroleum-derived feedstocks in advance of downstream process operations. Since excessive internal tube fouling occurs above…
Heat Transfer: System Design II
Click here for full pdf version of this article - includes all graphs, charts, tables, and author information EXPANSION TANK A well designed expansion tank: 1. Maintains a static pump-suction head 2. Compensates for temperature-related volume and pressure changes 3.…
Capacity to double for an oil-shale process
Outotec GmbH (Oberursel, Germany), a 100% daughter company of Outotec Oy (Helsinki, Finland; www.outotec.com) has received a €109-million contract for the design, delivery, construction and commissioning of a new oil-shale processing plant to be built in Narva, Estonia for Eesti…