The repair technology developed by THALETEC with glass lined 3D-printed repair patches is also making its mark in the USA. After a pointer from the Maintenance Manager of the German branch of a chemical company, his American colleague became aware of this innovative repair system.

The task for THALETEC USA Inc. was to repair an old 4,000- gallon Pfaudler reactor (approximately 16,000l) dating from 1973. The customer operates the reactor under vacuum. Damage which had occurred some time previously was initially repaired using tantalum in a conventional manner. However, the repair using an approximately 125 mm tantalum plate failed after a short time. In a second attempt, they tried to repair the now greater damage using a tantalum plate some 300 mm in diameter. This also failed after a few days. The cause of the failure was quickly determined to be that the prevailing vacuum in the reactor deformed the thin tantalum plate and thus led to leakage. To make matters worse, the reactor had a breakthrough in the damage area​​. This damage was determined by the fact that the pressure in the jacket of the tank decreased during a batch and heating medium penetrated the product space.

The customer opted for a repair using THALETEC EmRep technology because several attempts to repair it using tantalum had obviously been unsuccessful. Since the reactor is critical to his process, the solution had to be fast and, above all, reliable.

The repair was carried out in a targeted action using the glass lined EmPad: In the first step, the geometry of the tank in the damaged location area was recorded digitally by a THALETEC technician using a 3D scanner. The recorded geometry data crossed the Atlantic within minutes. Immediately afterwards, the construction and production of the pad took place at THALETEC’s site in Thale. After being glass lined and tested by THALETEC, the EmPad was shipped by express airfreight to the USA.

After a few days’ work, the EmPad was with the customer and was installed and tested by a THALETEC Inc. technician over the weekend in the customer's equipment. This was immediately brought into operation again by the customer and has been running smoothly ever since.

Glass lined repair elements have now become a de facto standard for high-quality and permanent repairs to all manufacturers’ glass lined equipment. Now customers in the USA have also become aware of this innovative system. The THALETEC subsidiary THALETEC USA Inc., based in Charlotte NC, is now available to serve American customers.

Picture 1:
Damage to a glass lined agitated tank in the USA

Picture 2:
3D scan of the damage

Picture 2: Installed EmPad with a diameter of approximately 300 mm.

Glass linings for the process industry is an universal composite material, which can be used in processes with a PH bandwith from 0 to 14.

Glass linings is chemically resistant when other materials would fail already after a short period of time.

For this reason appliances in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries use layers of this universal glass material over a basis steel body.

A glass lining is composed of one or two layers of ground linings and up to five layers of cover glass lining. The latter give the glass lining the chemical resistance and the required operation characteristics. Normaly as basis materials fine grain steel (like P275 NH, P265 GH) is used, which have limited levels of carbon and manganese.

For special applications is possible also to use materials that are nickel based for instance hasteloys or inconel, to take advantage of the high chemical resistance and flat surfaces.

For economical reasons, the demanded quality, layer thickness and accuracy of glass linings shall be reached by a low number of cover layers.

Further information about the history of glass linings manufacturing see Wikipedia.

Besides corrosive applications, due to their extreme high surface quality, glass linings are also used by processes are prone to caking and adhere.

Glass linings equipment and components are used for polymerization processes like the THALETEC PowerBaffle: Glasslined heat exchanges used as BafflesPowerBaffle manageble for sure.

on the Apparatus wall or the components, like e.g. polymerizations. The high surface quality of the glass linings largely avoids product adheres.

Since different applications demand diffferent requirements from the glass linings, THALETEC has, besides the universal chemical and pharmaceutical glass, for instance the electric conductive glass CONDUSIST or the abrasion resistant glass ABRISIST specially designed for high abrasive processes.

With pleasure we advise you to find the best choice of glass linings for your process.

THALETEC kettle reboilers consist of a horizontal glass lined vessel. This has at least one tangential nozzle for the lateral mounting of a tube bundle heat exchanger. A vapour nozzle is used to discharge the vapours.

Additional nozzles can be implemented as required. The heat exchanger is preferably a glass lined heat exchanger of the type WTU. Preferably a WTU type glass lined heat exchanger is used. The exchanger can be heated using liquid heat transfer media.