Automated Tube Cleaning Saves Millions
Plant type: Petro-Chemical

Client Challenge

Each day that one of the client’s five vertical reactors is offline
costs the plant an estimated $200,000. With one or two reactors taken down each year for catalyst repack, the financial impact of getting back online quickly is significant. The client needed to identify opportunities to modify specific processes that would reduce the
overall outage time.

Aquilex Solution

The industrial cleaning portion of the repack involved cleaning 25,000 tubes, each measuring 26 feet, and required around-the-clock, manual cleaning that took 10 – 15 days. In addition to being a lengthy process, the vast number of tubes resulted in missed tubes and inconsistent cleaning.

Aquilex HydroChem custom-designed an automated tube cleaning system that would:

• Dramatically reduce the time required to clean all tubes
• Eliminate missed tubes through a marking system
• Provide consistent cleaning from the first tube to the last

Results

The impact on the outage was significant:

• Time to clean the tubes was reduced by more than 65% and now takes just 3.5 days
• No skipped tubes
• Tubes are cleaner than ever before and the quality of cleaning is consistent from the first tube to the very last tube