NEWS
AND LINKS
We
invite you to enjoy an informal and informative
visit to this our
Web-Site Development Page. Here you will find some NEWS and a few LINKS,
along with some concepts under development and new pages under construction.
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Welcome to our Web-Site R&D Workshop
We
hope that you will find the information provided here and
throughout our web-site to be of interest to you and your
associates. We will look forward to receiving your comments
and suggestions. And . . . IF you are a Process or Reliability
Engineer faced with heat exchanger fouling or thermal system
performance problems, we hope you will benefit from this and
future visits.
The
FIRST INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON INNOVATIVE APPROACHES FOR
IMPROVING HEAT EXCHANGER RELIABILITY
- held at the Adam's Mark Hotel in Houston, Texas on Nov.
2-4, 1998 - appeared to be a complete and total success, based
upon the general consensus of the majority of participants
and exhibitors, which included Advanced Heat Transfer.
PAPER
/ PRESENTATION AVAILIBILITY
- A copy of the paper entitled "Improve Heat Exchanger
Performance, Reliability and Up-Time with Self-Cleaning Heat
Exchangers for Fouling Service" by Robert E. Bailie,
P.E. of Advanced Heat Transfer (presented at the above symposium)
is available upon request - CONTACT US. A disk copy of the
PowerPoint presentation can also be provided by direct telephone
request
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An ATB System
Life-Cycle Cost Analysis
Following the installation of an ATB System, a Life-Cycle Cost Analysis confirmed that the annual
cost of fouling can equal the original cost of a heat exchanger
that is faced with severe fouling problems. The solution to
a costly fouling problem at a CPI facility near Victoria, Texas, involved
the retro-fitting of an existing exchanger with an ATB System that yielded the following results.
Technical
and Economic Parameters -
associated with this costly HX fouling problem
- Excess
heat transfer surface . . . . . .107%
- Approx.
original cost of HX . . . . . .$160,000
- Typical
average service life of HX . .10 years
- Annual
cost of quarterly outages . . .$160,000
The
Solution - an
on-site retro-fit project
- Approx.
installed cost ATB System . . . . $60,000
- Estimated
remaining service life . . . . . . . . 8 years
- Projected
savings over service life . . . . . .$1,280,000
In
this case, while it was assumed that the loss of production
costs were included in the quarterly cost of cleaning, the
original cost of the equipment would be one-tenth of the cost
of fouling over the service life of the equipment. The $60,000
solution to the $160,000 per year problem is now projected
to yield a 2100% ROI in the remaining 8 or more years of service
life.
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Top
Testimonials
& Project Profiles from our "Archives"
The "testimonials"
that follow are excerpts from articles written by users of
the FBHX Technology in the past.
| Problem:
A
steam-heated evaporation system recovers a volatile organic
from a heavy organic solution laden with foulants.A
hard black scale requires switching to redundant clean
evaporators every four to five days. Solution:
An
FBHX installation (as described in the complete article)
Results:
The
FBHX has been in service for over a year (today it has
been in service for over 6 years) without any operating
problems.There have been no shutdowns for cleaning
tubes and no process upsets, and maintenance has been
nil. A significant cost savings results from the
higher recovery of acetic acid and the more concentrated
residue in the bottoms. The FBHX appears capable of
routine operation for at least a full year between turnarounds
(and that has been demonstrated in recent years). Under
the new system, the reboiler circulation rate has been
constant, thus providing uniform tower operation and
more total throughput.
.
. . excerpts from . . .
"Fluidized bed heat exchanger
eliminates reboiler fouling"
Chemical Processing - August 1992 |
| Problem:
Part
of the mother liquor from the crystallization of a herbicide
was recycled to reduce wastewater loading and to recover
product not captured in the filters. A shell-and-tube
heat exchanger was used to cool the mother liquor. Material
crystallized on the tube walls. Within a few days, the
heat exchangers would require cleaning. The overall
heat transfer coefficient would drop from 115 clean to
60 fouled (and due for cleaning) in as little as 4 days
Solution:
An
FBHX installation (as described in the complete article)
Results:
The
fluid bed heat exchanger has operated for over 90 days
without cleaning with an overall heat transfer coefficient
average increased to approximately 250. The
fluid bed heat exchanger has resulted in less downtime,
less maintenance, lower wastewater treatment loads and
improved safety. Product yields have improved.
.
. . excerpts from . . .
"Heat transfer coefficient
doubles with fluid bed heat exchanger"
Chemical Processing - January 1992 |
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WANTED
- Joint Venture Partners
In the Cover Story of the January 1999 issue of Chemical Processing
magazine - "Outlook 1999 & beyond" - INNOVATING
was cited as one of the leading "Challenges for the chemical
industry" (see Table 1, page 25). We firmly believe that
INNOVATING with self-cleaning heat exchangers to eliminate
fouling will become widely accepted when the true cost of fouling is acknowledged by on-site process and reliability engineers,
despite the under commercialization and under utilization
of these technologies in the past. The following is an expanded
restatement of our desire to secure Strategic Business Alliances
and Joint Venture Partnerships to share the benefits of these
technologies, with our U.S. (Houston, TX) based operations
focused on the process industries. 
MORE
DETAILS - about A Few Specific Applications which are awaiting
Strategic Business Alliances and Joint Venture Development
Programs
- Integrated
Reactor / Mixer / Heat Exchanger as recently applied to Gas Hydrate Production with a major independent oil company
- The FBHX Technology offers a unique opportunity
to combine fluidized bed mixing with a close-coupled
heat exchanger, ideally suited to exothermic reactions.
- Wax
Laden Wastewater Recovery Systems
- A proven application wherein a self-cleaning heat
exchanger is combined with a conventional filter system
to function as a thermal separations process.
- Lube-Oil
Dewaxing Systems
- An application proven by testing with one of the
world's largest oil companies over a decade ago to
replace costly and maintenance intensive scraped-surface
exchangers.
- Landfill
Leachate Concentrators
- An application that frequently involves
inorganic and organic fouling constituients, along
with high concentrations of suspended solids.
- Paraxylene
Crystallization
- A highly respected crystallization specialist estimated
that the capital cost of a typical increment of capacity
with FBHX Technology would be less than half the cost
of conventional scraped-surface, BEFORE considering
reduced operating and maintenance costs of the FBHX
alternative.
- Totally
Non-Scaling Brine Heaters -An
application to up-grade and enhance the operating
reliability of MSF Evaporator Systems at Sea Water
Desalination Plants
|
Proprietary or Joint
Venture
Process Development Services
Advanced Heat Transfer Technologies
has secured Joint Venture Partners for a few select Proprietary
Process Development Projects not included in the above.
We will welcome any opportunity to pursue the above applications
and to develop the full potential of the self-cleaning
heat exchanger technologies throughout the process industries
with innovative,leading-edge . . .
Advanced Heat Transfer and Thermal
Separations Systems
These systems will enable the Joint Venture Partner
to achieve and maintain a position of dominance within
a specific market niche through the exclusive use of these
technologies within the Partners system. |
AND FINALLY . . . a few LINKS for Process / Reliability
Engineers
Once again, we'd like to say "THANK YOU" for spending
some time "surfing our web-site". We hope we've
made a contribution to your knowledge-base of heat exchanger
fouling, that you will invite your associates to visit and
that you will come back again as we strive to make this a
highly interactive site in the months ahead. We believe you
will find the LINKS listed below to be of particular interest. We will try to keep these links current
and will welcome your suggestions for additions via our CONTACT US form.
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