Product Recovery and Pigging Systems for Chemical Manufacture
As the world’s leading specialists in pigging, liquid product recovery and transfer solutions, HPS undertake a lot of projects. In fact, since our inception in 1995, we’ve delivered thousands of pigging and liquid transfer projects throughout the world.
This blog article looks at one of the latest projects being delivered by HPS. It’s for a chemical manufacturer located in the US.
If you’ve just come across this page and are interested in pigging, but don’t know where to start then make sure you check out our blog article “Planning a Pigging System Project and Getting Started”.
Transforming Chemical Manufacture with HPS Liquid Transfer Technology
HPS are currently undertaking a project for a manufacturer of industrial cleaning chemicals. The project involves the installation of a HPS Rotomatrix Rotary Manifold.
The Rotomatrix Rotary Manifold uses a compact set of rotating arms. It’s an extremely effective way to connect pipelines from multiple sources to multiple destinations. It includes safety interlocks to prevent wrong connections, so as well as improving operational efficiency, it also improves safety and minimises the risks of connection errors.
The Rotomatrix has been designed and configured so it meets the exact requirements and needs of the chemical manufacturer. As well as chemicals, the Rotomatrix can be used with a wide range of products. This includes food, beverages, paint, cosmetics, pet food, wineries, household liquids plus many more.
The project also involves the installation of multiple liquid product recovery (pigging) systems. Here’s an explanation of how pigging systems work. But to put it briefly, pigging refers to the operation of propelling a specialist projectile (the “pig”) through a product transfer pipe.
The product residue in the pipeline that would normally be flushed to drain, is recovered by the pig, and forced to the destination filler. This all happens extremely quickly, and the pigging process is much faster than people think – here’s a video which shows how fast a pig travels through a pipeline or tube.
Aims of the Pigging and Liquid Transfer Project
The project is for an industrial cleaning products manufacturing plant, which is being redesigned to operate more effectively and efficiently.
Therefore, pigging, and liquid transfer is one of the key technologies being incorporated to help the chemical manufacturer achieve their goals.
Rotomatrix and pigging technology deliver a wide range of benefits to companies that process liquids.
However, the primary aim of this project is to utilise HPS pipeline pigging products and liquid transfer systems to recover product, prevent cross-contamination, and improve product quality.
Why the Chemical Manufacturer is Using Pigging and Rotomatrix Technology?
As well as helping the chemical manufacturer increase yields and reduce cross-contamination risks, the HPS solution will reduce waste and the associated disposal costs, decrease downtime, speed up processing plus much more. In this way, the benefits of pigging systems and Rotomatrix technology are considerable.
The HPS solution will also deliver rapid return on investment (ROI). It is expected to save the manufacturer $5,000,000 a year, in product savings alone. This figure may be even higher if ancillary savings such as reduced water usage, labour savings etc are considered. Therefore, the savings, payback and ROI from pigging systems are significant.
Pigging and Liquid Transfer Equipment
The Rotomatrix equipment includes roto joints, arm sections, interlock switch plates, actuators and so on.
In addition, the pigging equipment includes everything from the launch and receive equipment, specialist valves and pig detectors to bi-directional pigs, piggable T’s, support, and fittings and more.
One of the key components of pigging systems are the pipeline pig(s). Because the product being pigged is extremely aggressive, the pig has been specially designed with materials that have a high resilience to certain chemicals. This makes the HPS pig extremely durable, robust, and long-lasting.
Next Stages of the Project
The HPS equipment is currently undergoing rigorous quality checks to ensure unmatched quality. Once it has been approved, it will then be delivered to site, installed, and commissioned.
We’ve taken lots of photos of the equipment during testing at HPS headquarters in Nottingham, UK. So, please take a look at them below:
Get in Touch
HPS has a strong reputation and is one of the most experienced pigging system providers. We’ve worked with a wide range of companies throughout the world that manufacture chemicals and similar type products.
As well as chemicals, here are some of the key industries that are benefitting from HPS pigging, liquid product recovery and product transfer solutions.
If you have an upcoming pigging or liquid transfer project and would like to discuss it with one of our experts or arrange an on-site visit, please get in touch. Our friendly, knowledgeable process system experts will provide you with all the information you need to get underway with your pigging project.