Granulated sulphur .2 / ask Lyn

Roland Heilmann
(not verified)
Posted in: , on 20. Aug. 2015 - 09:55

Dear hopper specialists,

I have a hopper to be revamped, and would like to ask some questions here which I unfortunately cannot ask on site.

Situation:

- Hopper of 100m, 60°/60° converging walls (valley angle ~51°), square outlet into a rotating slider gate, currently: lining is rubber, in converging section there's a poker hole (box type protrusion)

- sulphur grains of 2 - 6 mm dia. roughly spherical, original moisture < 0.5%, 1.2t/m, angle of repose 25..27°

- hot to moderate sea climate (seashore at 200 m), very little rainfall, sulphur dioxide and salt in the air

- rather long dwell time (> 2 weeks) of material in the hopper may occur

- outside of hopper shows some hammer rash in converging section, current outlet device has burned at some earlier time despite that everything (should have) had all the required trimmings considering fire and explosion hazards

My requests:

a) Is there a risk of formation of crusts or bridges within the hopper due to the abovementioned environmental conditions?

b) What other hopper lining could be considered?

c) Any other tips / input from professional experience with this material.

Thank you very much in advance,

with Kind Regards

R.

Untitled

Erstellt am 20. Aug. 2015 - 09:59

Hi Roland,

It sounds like you might be exporting sulphur prills from an oil terminal according to the climate, residence time and fire protection. So why 200m altitude?

Sulphur will melt quite easily,but still needs care. Sometimes the pipelines can solidify from wave over-topping, en route, when they are not jacketed. Then the operators go down the line and steam the pipe until it flows again. In your case maybe the fire precautions were disabled while they put a burner onto the hopper shell because at 200m they were away from hydrocarbon pipelines. If somebody is watching they would just use the hammer.

I would say to:

1. Yes, it has crusted before and will do so again;

2. Rubber is there to reduce degradation, that's all: sulphur and rubber are not the best of friends;

3. Put a jacketed ring around the outlet to get the prills moving and feed the jacket from a steam cleaner when they need it. Don't forget to trim the rubber back from the outlet.

Hope this helps a bit,,,,,and there's no call for a drawing either: this time.

You mention SO2. If your application is for fuel to a sulphuric acid plant, or something of that sort, my solution is still the same.

John Gateley johngateley@hotmail.com www.the-credible-bulk.com

Roland Heilmann
(not verified)

200 M To Where The Beach Would Be...

Erstellt am 21. Aug. 2015 - 07:56

Hello John,

thanks for your ideas. In order to refine:

- the seashore is 200 m away horizontally, I mentioned this as I think there will be some spray, saltwater fog o.e. at least sometimes

- the material is granulated and far away from the liquid / steam section of the plant. It is cooled down, so within the hopper it should not get to a higher temperature than ~ 55°C which is max. shadow temp. at the place. Hopper is located within a tower, which itself is cladded.

- Sulphur melting point being > 110°C it would be of interest to me if it gets soft / runny already at a lower temperature than that. And / or under the pressure due to the material column in the hopper.

- Material is really like a lot of little balls

sulp

- the S02 is just "in the air", billowing around. Same to dust, which is also settled down quite everywhere. This makes anybody doing hot work without proper credentials & preparations eligible to an exit ticket, either directly from spontaneous ignition.. or later on to contain on bad precedence.

The question about the crusts are really a guess, as I cannot imagine how such a material (dry, granular, spherical, small with big outlet) could possibly need "flow aid". I'm out to catch someone who's run a similar plant and could tell.

Hoping for still more interest & opinions,

Kind regards

R.

No Yellow Peril.

Erstellt am 21. Aug. 2015 - 09:36

If you trawl through the threads there was case of someone cleaning a blocked sulphur silo using steam cleaners. As I recall there was no fire hazard involved, they were only using steam and hot condensate. If you don't fancy the jacketing; you have a poke hole already: just add more'. In Al Jubail I often saw ship loads of the stuff exported from the adjacent berth. It flowed like a dream.

Believe it or not, when a road tanker full of bitumen gets the discharge pipe blocked the driver is expected to procure a blowtorch and get down and heat the pipe to 160oC to get the stuff moving. Many do: I wouldn't.

John Gateley johngateley@hotmail.com www.the-credible-bulk.com

Roland Heilmann
(not verified)

2nd Try

Erstellt am 26. Aug. 2015 - 07:23

Hello Lyn, Hello All,

i would very much like to give these above requests a second try in this here forum.

Please have a(nother) kind look...

Thank you in advance for your time and interest

R.

Granular / Prilled Sulphur Reclaim

Erstellt am 26. Aug. 2015 - 11:30
Quote Originally Posted by Roland HeilmannView Post
Hello Lyn, Hello All,

i would very much like to give these above requests a second try in this here forum.

Please have a(nother) kind look...

Thank you in advance for your time and interest

R.

Hi Roland and all,

Perhaps you should consider an alternative reclaim system such as Vibrafloor, if you are struggling with bridging and blocking of prilled sulphur. It requires no routine maintenance, achieves total silo clearance, without degrading the product and does not require any silo reinforcement as no torque or damaging vibration is transferred to the silo. If you would like me to send some video links and more information, please feel free to contact me on simon@carbon-2-zero.co.uk or +44(0)7711 001819

Regards

Simon

Roland Heilmann
(not verified)

Space

Erstellt am 26. Aug. 2015 - 12:51

Hello Simon,

thank you for your interest!

I'm not exactly struggling: The material "shouldn't" block or bridge, but I seek for circumstances which could make it do so, or else to "uncover" the root cause of the aforementioned hammer rash as habitual or misplaced behaviour of some operator or maintenance man coming from a more sticky bulk background.

I just cannot go and ask... :-[

Apart this, there's effectively no space to be added neither vertically nor horizontally in order to place additional (larger) equipment.

Kind Regards

R.