Precast ceramic components for sulfur recovery, waste heat boilers, FCC units and chemical reactors.
Claus furnaces, tubesheets, catalyst lines and reactors.
Ceramic parts for the spots where refractory fails mid-campaign.
The refinery refractory systems that extend campaigns are precast ceramic components designed for one position in the unit: checkerwalls that mix the gas in a Claus reaction furnace, ferrules that protect waste heat boiler tubesheets, and silicon carbide parts for the abrasive zones of an FCC unit. Blasch engineers each part from the unit's dimensions and process conditions, and most are set dry or with very little castable, so the outage is spent installing rather than curing. That combination is what lets a sulfur recovery unit or a chemical reactor run to the planned turnaround instead of the next failure.
Refining and chemical units combine thermal cycling, corrosive atmospheres and abrasive catalyst. Most of the refractory in them is still brick, castable and anchors placed by hand during the outage.
In a Claus reaction furnace, the gas needs time, temperature and turbulence to destroy ammonia and hydrocarbons before it reaches the waste heat boiler.
HexWall checkerwalls are stacked dry from interlocking blocks with round openings, so the unsupported part of each block works as an arch. VectorWall adds vectoring tiles that set the gas into rotation for a narrow residence time distribution.
The same walls are used in tail gas incinerators, thermal oxidizers, sulfur burning furnaces and spent acid regeneration furnaces, where DuPont MECS distributes them for sulfuric acid service.
In most refinery units, the turnaround date is set by the one refractory component that wears out first, so engineering that component is worth more than upgrading everything around it.
Behind every hot process gas sits a boiler, and the tube inlets at its tubesheet see the highest heat flux in the train.
Ceramic ferrules shield each tube inlet. Hex head designs close into one surface at operating temperature without castable between them, and two piece ProLok ferrules lock their stems so vibration cannot walk them out.
Ferrules from Blasch are used in boilers after sulfur recovery, sulfuric acid, VCM, nitric acid, steam methane reforming, titanium dioxide, ethylene and FCC units. All ferrule types
FCC units move abrasive catalyst at high temperature and velocity. Blasch makes alumina bonded silicon carbide air grid nozzles, lined elbows for catalyst lines and linings for cyclones and scrubbers.
Titanium dioxide plants see the same abrasion plus chlorine chemistry. Micronizer linings, vortex finders, valves and reactor linings are cast in silicon carbide grades developed for that service.
Each part below is designed for the unit it goes into, from its dimensions and operating conditions.
A mixing checkerwall for Claus furnaces and incinerators, built from HexWall blocks and vectoring tiles.
One and two piece ferrules that protect the tubesheet at the inlet of every boiler tube.
One piece cast liners for catalyst transfer and unloading lines, fitted inside a steel body.
In a European refinery FCC unit, elbows in a catalyst transfer line carried catalyst at 690 °C and failed within days. A reaction bonded silicon carbide lined replacement ran up to 12 months. CeraLine in an FCCU catalyst line
In a sulfuric acid plant in Australia, hex head ferrules cut installation time by 67% compared with round ferrules while a waste heat boiler with 859 tubes was retubed in a three week outage. Waste heat boiler retubing
For a 500 t/d gas plant sulfur recovery unit with lean acid gas, a published calculation put the fuel gas saved by a VectorWall at more than $250,000 a year, at $3 per million Btu. VectorWall in a Claus SRU
Sulfur recovery units, Claus reaction furnaces, SRU waste heat boilers, ammonia and BTEX destruction, tail gas incinerators, thermal oxidizers, sulfuric acid production, spent acid regeneration and sulfur burning furnaces.
Fluid catalytic cracking with its regenerator air distributors, cyclones and diplegs, catalyst lines and CO boilers.
Titanium dioxide chloride process, carbon black reactors, ethylene furnace transfer line exchangers, VCM and nitric acid waste heat boilers, syngas and gasification.
Steam methane reforming, reformer tunnels, revamps and secondary reforming have their own page under hydrogen and ammonia production.
The market manager for refining and chemical processing on the previous Blasch site was Tim Connors, Director of Business Development, Blasch Global Solutions.
Blasch works with licensors, EPCs and plant operators. Ferrules and checkerwalls are designed from the boiler and furnace data, and a drawing is not needed to start.
Checkerwalls for the reaction furnace (HexWall and VectorWall) and ferrules for the waste heat boiler tubesheet. Both are precast and installed without mortar between the blocks or ferrules.
Often, yes. Where a shape repeats or a section fails in the same place, a precast part avoids forming and curing on site and can be pulled for inspection.
Yes. Elbows and spools are lined with a one piece cast ceramic sleeve inside a steel body. It is a liner with its own wall thickness, not a coating.
Titanium dioxide, carbon black, ethylene, VCM, nitric acid and sulfuric acid plants, plus flare and thermal destruction systems.
Send the unit, the position and how the part fails today. A Blasch engineer answers with a material and a design.
