Some valves perform better under the toughest conditions but not all valves are designed for every use. Because of this, a normal process valve might not perform well in demanding, harsh, or abrasive situations. For more challenging applications, selecting the correct valve can be an expensive and time-consuming process.
Standard valves may be installed in difficult applications in many process facilities, where they may perform terribly and require frequent maintenance. The performance of those identical valves may be improved, or perhaps plant staff should look for a valve that is more suited to the purpose.Many industrial industries face difficulties when dealing with heavy slurries. Slurries frequently contain minerals that might damage conventional valves. It is difficult for ordinary valves to handle abrasive slurries.
Numerous sectors, including chemical processing, steel production, pulp and paper, mining, and energy production, frequently use lime slurry. It is available as liquid or powder. Compared to pure or clean substances, lime has unique properties. It is abrasive and frequently scales in instruments, valve parts, and pipelines.Calcium carbonate is mined from limestone in quarries. It is then crushed and placed into a kiln where the carbon dioxide is burned off to create calcium oxide at a temperature of about 2,000 F.
Either a tower mill, spiral classifier, or slacker is used to grind the CaO into a powder. There are numerous industrial uses for milk of lime, such as:pH regulation, Filler for paper, Powerful flue gas filtration, In culinary and medicinal uses, calcium extraction, Glass production and so on.
Lime particles are suspended in solution rather than dissolving. The rough, jagged particles are present. Since lime is floating in solution, lime particles can accumulate in valves and piping systems if there are any gaps, cracks, or voids. Lime, which hardens in these collection spots, makes the issue worse. It’s best to use high pressure slurry valves to avoid all of these issues.
Scaling is the term used to describe the transformation of lime into a solid mass of material. Scaling causes a pipeline’s inner diameter to decrease and frequently results in valves freezing in place as a result of material accumulation on the seats and other surfaces. Due to these traits, the use of lime frequently necessitates a drawn-out and potentially costly process of trial and error to discover the appropriate process machinery to handle this chemical.The number of cavities, cracks, and void spaces in valves and other equipment used with lime slurry applications should be kept to a minimum.
Certain equipment can seize and become dysfunctional even at a minor collecting point, resulting in downtime and maintenance concerns. In an effort to solve the issue, some plant operators enlarge the plug and ball valves’ actuators. They might enlarge the actuator so that it can provide an amount of torque that is nearly twice what the typical manufacturer recommends for clean liquids. The performance and downtime caused by stuck valves may be improved by this size increase, but not all maintenance issues will be resolved.
