Has your company recently experienced a permit or compliance issue with existing air pollution control equipment? Have you experienced recent growth that is projected to move your emissions above your limits? Do you need help evaluating options for your situation?
One problem that many companies experience is that the people who are experts in issues related to permits (such as environmental engineering firms or consultants) are not experts in your process, don’t know about the installation of equipment, or, for the most part, aren’t fully knowledgeable on what type of air pollution control is available and applicable to your situation. This is where Catalytic Products International (CPI) comes in.
A Cost-Saving Solution
Recently, we spoke with a customer that was having some issues with their existing air pollution control equipment. The OEM had installed their “best” solution. However, the system that was installed was causing issues within operations and was not able to meet the plant’s reliability expectations. The plant was frustrated with the OEM’s maintenance performance, as well as their inability to solve the seasonal problems they were experiencing.
CPI was contracted to visit site, provide a second opinion on the current system, and offer observations and insights in regards to safety and reliability. Between the two engineers who visited the site, CPI offered almost 50 years of experience in volatile organic compound (VOC) abatement system design, installation & process hazard analysis, I&C interface, and optimization. With this experience, CPI was able to document and understand the process conditions during start up, normal operation, and upset conditions. Once the process demands were understood, we were able focus on the long term solution for the entire system.
Even though the regenerative thermal oxidizer (RTO) system was supplied by another OEM, CPI was able to review design conditions and current operation issues for the system. Just like taking your car in for an oil check, CPI utilizes a check list of over 60 items to double check for proper engineering. This ensures that no detail is overlooked. In this case, we were able to identify several cracked welds and an improperly designed recirculation system, as well as several insulation issues, an undersized fan, and a hot gas bypass that was not functioning properly.
Upon identification of these issues, CPI was able to provide a quote for replacement of the hot gas bypass, recirculation system, and process gas fan. At CPI, we understand our customers’ need to be cost conscious, so instead of insisting on doing the installation ourselves, a project manager was assigned throughout the project. This one point of contact also helped identify and supervise local contractors that could be hired directly by the end customer to save costs.
Through our knowledge of air pollution control systems and our desire to provide the most cost-effective solution for our clients, CPI was able to help this customer resolve their issues in a satisfactory manner and ensure that they were able to operate efficiently for years to come. If you have any questions about how CPI can address your own air pollution control needs, please contact us.
For more examples of CPI's maintenance and upgrade services at work, please take a look at this case study.