BUNDLE BLASTER.
Dow Industrial Service uses "bundle blaster" to clean shell side and tube side of refinery bundles
Chemical cleaning business doubled sales in past five years, sees gleaming future Contract services grow 20% a year, contributing to fast, inexpensive plant maintenance "A clean plant is a happy plant." That's the tune men in the chemical cleaning business may well be singing these days. And with good reason—their part of the plant maintenance industry has nearly doubled its sales in the past five years, and, if today's healthy growth rate continues, its sales are likely to double again in the next five years. The clean plant tune is being echoed the country over by plant managers and engineers who are demanding more and more efficient use of their equipment. And, as the chemical cleaning people like to say, the only efficient equipment is clean equipment. Plant engineers realize that a welltimed cleaning of some equipment as preventive maintenance may eliminate a prolonged and expensive shutdown later while equipment is repaired and cleaned. Chemical cleaning, broadly speaking, involves the use of any of a wide variety of chemicals made by many major chemical companies to free
equipment of dirt, rubbish, obstructions, and impurities. Some typical cleaning agents are hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, sodium carbonate solution, citric acid solution, and perchloroethylene. Before the advent of cleaning with chemicals, plant maintenance crews depended on mechanical methods of cleaning plant equipment, and these methods, such as high-pressure water, rotating wire brushes, and even hammer and chisel are still used today, sometimes in conjunction with chemical cleaning. However, chemical cleaning has the advantages of being faster, less expensive, and often does a better job. In some cases, such as a maze of hardto-reach piping, chemicals offer the only solution to the cleaning problem. The chemical cleaning industry in the U.S. is divided into two segments—contract services, which includes the cleaning agents as well as the entire cleaning process with labor, and individual products for use at will by plant employees. Although sales of individual products for doit-yourself use will comprise the larger part of the $80 million to $100 million chemical cleaning market this year, there is a definite trend toward switching over to contract services. This segment of the industry, which currently accounts for about a third of total chemical cleaning sales, is by far the faster growing segment, with
a current annual growth rate of about 20%. In contrast, growth of the doit-yourself products is only about 5% per year. Major cause. Marketing officials attribute part of the growth of contract services to industrial expansion. However, the major cause for the high growth rate, they say, is maintenance managers' increasing recognition of what can be done with chemical cleaning. Do-it-yourself cleaning often involves some disassembly of equipment, resulting in high labor costs and relatively long down times. Such experiences prove to be one of the best selling tools that contract chemical cleaning firms have, one official says. Mechanical cleaning, and limited do-it-yourself chemical cleaning, usually is done when a plant or major unit has been shut down for a general turnaround. At these times, cleaning plays a relatively small part in the overhaul work and can be fitted into the turnaround as a small part of the cost. Chemical cleaning contractors aren't likely to take over completely the cleaning during turnaround of units, but even there they are gaining substantial new business. Often they are, in effect, subcontractors to the prime contractor for the complete turnaround job. Two* thirds. Three large companies account for about two thirds of the total contract sales annually. These three—Dow Industrial Service (DIS), of Dow Chemical; Richardson Chemical Cleaning Service, a diAUG. 18, 1969 C&EN 17
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vision of Richardson Co.; and Haliburton Services, a division of Haliburton Co.—operate in most sections of the U.S., as well as in most other major industrial countries. The remainder of contract servicing is handled by regional or locally oriented companies whose sales hover around $50,000 per year, or even less. Many of these local companies offer a narrow range of specialty types of cleaning. Some are one- or twoman operations whose owners garnered their know-how through prior employment with one of the big companies. Any kind. DIS, Haliburton, and Richardson will contract to do almost any kind of chemical cleaning, sometimes with mechanical cleaning as well. The exceptions are those involving hazards, where only dangerous chemicals will do the job or where necessary operating conditions are severe. Each of the three companies does have some area of specialization. DIS, for example, cleans utility boilers as a large part of its business. The Dow subsidiary for several years has used copper complexing agents to remove deposits of copper compounds in boiler tubes. Its thiourea complexing agent dominated the field in the early and mid-1960's, but newer alkaline complexers for copper which use chelating compounds have become commercial, says G. V. "Hook" Lee, marketing manager for DIS. Haliburton, also big in boiler cleaning, has put special effort into preoperational cleaning of boilers, ammonia plants, and the like. As have other companies, Haliburton developed formulations and techniques to avoid secondary problems in clean-
ing. For example, company engineers found that use of hydroxy ace tic acid as a complexing agent for iron at p H values of 10 to 11 allows subsequent flushing of nondrainable sections of equipment and piping without redeposition of iron salts. Haliburton is unique in the chemical cleaning field in that it has other companies make practically all of the chemicals it uses, says Francis Harris, head of cleaning services operations. Both Dow and Richardson use products which other divisions of their companies make, but both say they are not at all limited to these products. Nonspecialist. Richardson should be considered a nonspecialist in the field, says H. Stanley Lawton, a vice president of the parent company and general manager of the Chemical Cleaning Services division. The company probably does more work for the steel industry than do others but has worked in every industry, including preoperational cleaning of heating and cooling systems in major shopping centers. What seems to be a universal view among chemical cleaning contractors sparkles with optimism. They cite several reasons for continued high growth rates other than the advantages of chemical cleaning. For example, the trend to more all-welded piping can only help chemical cleaning. Much more complex piping, vessel internal parts, and processing in general will also help the chemical cleaning business. However, one question that clouds the industry's outlook is whether or not plant employee unions will change their views significantly toward the use of outside contractors.
ADHESIVES CONTRACT. Richardson cleaners work from truck equipment brought into refinery on contract basis. Contract service is fast-growing part of chemical cleaning 18 C&EN AUG. 18, 1969
