Smell Of Silo Cleaning Success - At A Chocolate Factory!

A Chocolate Factory ....  the very words smell sweet! When I drove past this particular chocolate factory owned by Cadbury, there was such a strong smell of chocolate in the air, I pulled over and stopped to take it in. Words cannot describe the smell - wonderful!

Then the large silos caught my eye and I wondered about their maintenance.That would possibly depend upon what was in the silos - could be sugar or milk powder or cocoa powder. I couldn't tell. Nevertheless they must have some form of silo cleaning system and an efficient one at that.

Imagine a chocolate factory suffering downtime because of poor silo maintenance - doesn't bear thinking about!

Sugar Silo Cleaning - Water Pressure Cleaning Option

This soot blowers blog mainly focuses on the debate of steam soot blowers versus sonic soot blowers. However, as with many things in life, when you start to delve deeper into a subject, other new subjects loom on the horizon and tempt your interest to investigate further!

This happened recently when I read about sugar silo cleaning. The writer of the article mentioned high pressure water cleaning as a method employed by some food processing companies for cleaning their sugar silos. I'm not familiar with this type of cleaning process but from what I understand it is more akin to hydro-ject cleaning which is used for cleaning out debris in tanks on industrial sites.

This type of cleaning sounds quite effective in its own right when you read about it but, given the fact that sonic soot blowers can do the job without interrupting plant operations, surely they present a preferable, less disruptive option.

However, as with all cleaning technologies, improvements may be made over time and counteract my current view. So I will make a note to revisit the subject in due course and let you know :)

Rapping Systems & ESP Cleaning

Having read about how soot blowers and sonic soot blowers are useful for Electrostatic Precipitator cleaning, I was interested to learn more about ESPs and in so doing came across the term "rapping".

Rappers, it would seem, are traditionally used in electrostatic precipitators to release the built-up layer of dust. Sounds simple enough but as is often the case with mechanical engineering, there's a little more to it than that! The characteristics of the dust that needs to be 'rapped' and collected will dictate the size and quantity of rappers used as well as the frequency with which the rappers need to 'rap'. Add to that the fact that there are different types of rapper - electric, pneumatic and mechanical - and you begin to get an idea of the intracacies.

The words 'mechanical wrapper' in particular caught my attention. Could physical rapping of mechanical hammers cause damage to the ESP? I starting looking into this and found that my suspicions were founded. According to this page about rappers 30 ton piston hammers can be involved!

Surely this has to be a case for arguing in favour of using sonic soot blowers. According to what I've read, they can be located on the top of the ESP, on the inlet duct and on the hopper sections and potentially completely eliminate the need for mechanical rappers. Sonic technology certainly has a lot to be said for its non-damaging properties and this page about esp cleaning goes into more detail for anyone interested.

Sonic Soot Blowing Questions

As with all subjects there is something to be learned reading a good FAQ page. Sonic soot blowers are no exception and today I found an excellent page answering some of the more commonly asked sonic soot blower questions.

It tackles the obvious such as what is a sonic soot blower and how does a sonic soot blower work but it also covers dealing with sintered deposits and what is required for effective operation.

Of particular interest were the following 2 points:

1. Retrofitting - apparently many sonic soot blowers are sold to plants to replace steam soot blowers, being fitted into the access holes left vacant after the steam soot blowers have been removed.

2. Key differences between a sonic soot blower and a steam soot blower with 3 points highlighted:

a) Price - sonic soot blowers are cheaper to buy, install, operate and maintain.

b) Damage/Corrosion issues - sonic soot blowers do not cause any physical damage or wear.

c) Cleaning Efficiency - by virtue of emitting powerful sound waves, the whole circumference of boiler tubes can be cleaned by a sonic soot blower whereas a steam soot blower is likely to clean only the leading edge.

These are just a few of the questions answered but the page deals with more answers to sonic soot blower questions if you're interested in following it through.

Boiler Deslagging Connection To Tesla

When you enter the steam soot blower vs sonic soot blower debate, you become familiar with so many terms that you've never encountered before. One such term is boiler deslagging. I wrote a piece recently about the connection between explosive cleaning and boiler deslagging.

When I research a subject I can go a little "off the wall" at times but I always regard it as a worthwhile journey into the unknown :-)

This happened just today when I came across a piece written by a sonic horns specialist who paid tribute to the genius of Nikola Tesla and made a connection with his work to that of boiler deslagging. Fascinating little piece and nice to see someone recognising a true genuis to whom we all owe a debt of gratitude.

Here is the "sonic horn inspiration" post - enjoy!

Sonic Replaces Steam In A Waste To Energy Plant

Steam soot blowers, as I have mentioned before, are widely used for boiler deslagging in many industries around the world. Their lifespan as a piece of premier industrial cleaning equipment is, however, under threat. There is no question of that. When compared to a sonic soot blower, a steam soot blower just doesn't measure up as its equal for boiler deslagging.

The sonic soot blower in this video clip is a good example. One of several, it was installed in a waste to energy plant to improve the efficiency of a boiler economizer, actually replacing the previous, old steam soot blowers which the plant had been using for some time.

Read more about soot blowers for boilers - yet more on the debate of steam vs sonic soot blowers.

Getting Technical On Sonic Soot Blowers

Soot blowers and sonic soot blowers give me plenty to think and write about. Sometimes I have to go and do research before I can write anything but it's always worthwhile because I learn so much!

Most engineers involved in industrial boiler cleaning and maintenance in largescale plants know the basics about soot blowers. With sonic soot blowers, however, it's a little different because this kind of cleaning technology is relatively new and not as widespread within industry. It was great, therefore, to find a really detailed sonic soot blowers technical paper. Recently published and writen by Quattrosonics MD Donald F Cameron, the paper goes into some fascinating detail.

Included in the issues covered ...

• How sonic soot blowers work


• Cleaning efficiency


• Corrosion and erosion issues

Clearly Mr Cameron is an expert in sonic cleaning technology and it's great to see someone of this calibre sharing their expertise. Thank you sir!