Our client is one of the leading tank storage and oil processing companies in Europe. At one of their distillation units, various raw materials and products are processed. To optimize this process, the Crude Feed—the primary raw material—is pre-heated before being further processed in the distillation stage.
Pre-heating is performed by the Crude Feed Pre-Heater. This is a liquid heater characterized by the absence of phase transition, where heat transfer occurs between two liquids. In this case, it is designed as a shell & tube heat exchanger where the Crude Feed is heated using thermal oil.
Due to the viscous and fouling nature of the Crude Feed, the existing heat exchanger required cleaning at a very high frequency. The process was shut down at least weekly to disassemble the heat exchanger for full cleaning under significant time pressure. Convinced of the solution, ROBOX used a test setup in one of the smaller units to demonstrate that this fouling could be prevented using tube inserts. This setup also proved the predicted capacity gain of 200-300%.
ROBOX has since built and delivered the new unit. Thanks to the applied innovation, our client has achieved significant savings on investment, maintenance, and downtime with this project. This unit has now been operating to full satisfaction for over a year without the need for cleaning.