Chemical Cleaning of Shell Tube Heat Exchanger

HOUSTON, TX - The Ethyl Corporation, Houston facility, recently
contracted with CleanCo Systems Industrial Service Company to
perform Chemical Cleaning on two of the facilities fixed shell tube
heat exchangers. Tim Green, General Manager of CleanCo Systems and
project supervisor explains, The fixed tube exchanger presents a
challenge for cleaning the shell side of the exchanger. The tubes
are permanently welded in the shell or casing and in order to clean
the surfaces of contaminates, fouling and oil or grease we utilize
our chemical cleaning system and specialized equipment. The
equipment used for this project is a trailer mounted, closed loop
pumping system driven by a 400 HP diesel engine and a circulating
pump along with two each 250 gallon stainless steel tanks. The flow
rate of the system is adjustable to up to 2000 GPM. We utilize our
own chemists and digital lab devices to determine the proper
chemicals to use. We determine what form -- foam, liquid, cascading,
or circulation -- as well as how strong the cleaning solution must
be. No guesswork. No one chemical fits all. Well determine what will
work -- and then go to work, Green continued. After the chemical
cleaning process, the exchangers were repositioned to the tube
lancing area of CleanCos Off-Site Heat Exchanger Cleaning Facility.
A multi-tube lancing system is used with five tubes simultaneously
cleaned with 10000 psi of water knocking out all fouling and
contaminates on the inside of the tubes. The

HOUSTON, TX - The Ethyl Corporation, Houston facility, recently
contracted with CleanCo Systems Industrial Service Company to
perform Chemical Cleaning on two of the facilities fixed shell tube
heat exchangers. Tim Green, General Manager of CleanCo Systems and
project supervisor explains, The fixed tube exchanger presents a
challenge for cleaning the shell side of the exchanger. The tubes
are permanently welded in the shell or casing and in order to clean
the surfaces of contaminates, fouling and oil or grease we utilize
our chemical cleaning system and specialized equipment. The
equipment use...