On a recent site, the silo was used to store salt for their production process. Water had contaminated the silo, causing the salt to harden and reduce its storage capacity. It was a relatively small silo so we were able to completely clean the buildup in a matter of a couple of days without any downtime for the plant. We restored the silo to 100 percent capacity.

At this site, we perform cleanout annually and sometimes even biannually. This plant utilizes slag from nearby steel mills to manufacture a type of slag cement. Because of the way their process works, the material tends to build up rather quickly in this raw-material silo. The material built up around the walls, reducing the planned capacity by at least 50 percent if not more. They find it beneficial to plan for preventative cleanout instead of waiting until it forces them to shutdown! 

One plant that we clean biannually uses bituminous coal in its steam generation process. The last time we cleaned there, they had an unexpected outage a few weeks prior. When that type of coal sits for extended periods of time, it has the possibility of spontaneous combustion. In this instance, an excessive amount of coal sat in the coal bunkers during their emergency outage. This caused "hot spots" to form. When we began cleaning, the bunker areas were strictly monitored for the presence of CO2 gas. As the coal began to burn, the area was evacuated and the plant personnel took appropriate measures to extinguish the fires. We used thermal imaging to find the hot spots and used the whips to break them up and feed them into the pulverizer and ultimately through the steam generation process. In the end, we were able to identify and remove all hot spots, eliminating the possibility of bunker fires or combustible dust explosion. It always feels good to help keep a plant and its people SAFE!