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Hazleton, Pennsylvania, USA - Hazleton^® specialty slurry pumps, a product brand of the Weir Minerals Division of the Glasgow-based Weir Group PLC, has been successful in providing the petroleum industry with a long term solution for gas scrubbing on Fluid Catalytic Cracking Units (FCCU). FCC technology increases the profitability and efficiency of a refinery and has become integral to the petroleum processing industry. The process is severe and demands high quality equipment with enduring reliability.

As North America, and the world, moves toward stringent emission controls across all industrial sectors, the refining industry have been using Wet Gas Scrubber (WGS) technology on their FCCUs to ensure emissions are kept in line with environmental regulations. The WGS uses a chemical solution in contact with the flue gas to remove acid gases like NOx and SOx (oxides of nitrogen and sulphur), catalyst particulate and other harmful pollutants.  Hazleton^® specialty slurry pumps are used to re-circulate this scrubbing solution, which accumulates very fine and severely erosive catalyst particles as a result of the scrubbing process.   

The refinery industry demands a high performance level for these installations and has identified that it wants pumps that provide extended operating life. That means operating 5+ years between planned maintenance intervals, in an effort to reduce process down time and maintenance costs. It also means rapid deliveries to meet accelerated project schedules and environmental compliance dates, as well as conforming to the particular design and performance specifications of each refiner.  

To meet the customer’s requirements, Hazleton^® slurry pumps are engineered to order for each application and incorporate design features and standards that not only ensure durability and reliability, but also differentiate them from the competition. Some of these features include:

• Hydraulic design which incorporate the unique Hazleton^®  “Controlled Diffusion” process, to minimize erosive vorticies and reduce slurry velocities in volutes, for longer wear life.
• Improved efficiencies versus our competitors - typically 3-5% higher.
• Utilization of materials and specialty coatings to achieve maximum wear life.
• Wear life requirements which can be designed into the pump at the beginning of the design process.
• Back Pullout & Front Pullout design which allows in-place inspection & maintenance.
• Conformance to API 610 10^th Edition.
• Design to customer specifications
• Quick design / delivery

Under the leadership of Hazleton’s Technical Director - Tom Stirling, and with the involvement of our adjacent foundry partner (Hazleton Casting Co.), and the entire Hazleton Operations team, Weir Minerals has been able to develop, design, engineer, and ship completely new engineered to order pump designs in less than 30 weeks to meet customer’s accelerated schedules.  Stirling states, “This has been a great accomplishment and advantage over the competitors who have struggled to ship even their existing standard API 610 process pumps in less than 40 weeks. We’re proud of the steps that our employees have been able to take to make this accomplishment possible.”

Stirling adds, “It has been by fulfilling our customer’s requirements and taking a flexible approach to develop, design, and rapidly deliver engineered-to-order slurry pump solutions that Hazleton^® specialty slurry pumps is quickly becoming the pump of choice in a growing number of refinery wet scrubbing systems.”