Pneumatic catalyst loading - an Australian first
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Transpacific is cornering the Australian market in pneumatic loading, currently servicing seven of the eight sulphuric acid plants in Australia.
The pneumatic loading journey began for Transpacific many years ago, and has been slowly refined over the years through both research and circumstance to solidify our position in the market as a key player in the catalyst screening field.
The Transpacific Catalyst Team was employed to remove both the catalyst and dust from a converter at a major mining client's site, before then carefully placing the catalyst back. Given a converter can hold 800,000 litres, it was an extremely lengthy and manual process to pull it out, clean it and put it back in. The movement required to carry out the process of putting it back in also created a large amount of extra dust.
The Transpacific team identified an opportunity to improve this process and therefore began investigating alternative methods of cleaning the catalyst and returning it back into the converter, with minimal or no dust creation.
Following extensive research, Transpacific identified an American company, called VIP International Group that could do just that - they had perfected the art of pneumatic loading and patented the technology worldwide.
In 2010, Transpacific formalised an agreement with VIP International Group to have the sole license to utilise this pneumatic loading technology in Australia.
Transpacific Catalyst Project Manager, Leigh Mercieca said that, following the approval of the license agreement, Transpacific approved funding to build the equipment required to perform pneumatic loading in Australia.
“With this, a new service for customers was born!” Leigh said.
The new equipment and patented licensed technology has resulted in an Australian first for Transpacific, enabling us to successfully blow catalyst into the converter under air pressure alone (a.k.a. pneumatic loading).
This delivers a superior result for clients by extending the life of converter campaigns significantly, and ensures the process needs to be completed at reduced regularity from the common 18-24 month period.
The first project, undertaken for an Acid Plant from 4th to 23rd August this year, was an immense success.
The client, one of Australia’s largest mining companies, was delighted by the results saying Transpacific far exceeded the contract obligations.
“To say that the new method of loading catalyst was a success would be an absolute understatement. We certainly put some pressure on the entire catalyst team and they not only came through, but were all a pleasure to work with and conducted themselves safely, with the utmost professional approach.”