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Powder and Bulk Engineering, November 1995

Case history

ristech Chemical, a subsidiary

of Mitsubishi Corporation, produces Bisphenol-A (BPA) at its
Haverhill, Ohio, plant for use in coatings, compounds, and adhesives. Aristech ships BPA prills to a Japanese
plastics producer who uses the prills to
make polycarbonate resins for the compact disc and other markets.

T h e product i s shipped by truck to

Cincinnati or Columbus, transferred to
railcar for East or West Coast arrival,
loaded on ships, and transported to
Japan.

Customers increased demand causes

plantto evaluate cost-effeaRenessof
shipping method
In the past, Aristech shipped the BPA
prills to Japan in 1-metric-ton bulk bags.
When the customer increased its polycarbonate production, it asked Aristech
to ship the prills in lined, overseas bulk
containers. The customer had to pay to
get rid of bags and pallets. They didnt
want to continue this with the increased
production, said Aristech project engi-

neer Don Nicholls. Plus they had, just as

we had, the cost of handling some 20
bulk bags per 20-metric-ton shipment.
The prill size is smaller than Xi inch with a
bulk density of 40 Ib/ft3. Because the
prills can easily erode, Aristech needed
to gently convey the chemical the 100foot distance into the container. And
since standard shipping containers were
to be used, the container had to be rearrather than top-loaded, making this task
more difficult.
The standard, 20-foot container is a stationary, ocean-going, truck-mounted
bulk container that lifts off the truck by
crane. To ensure the BPA prills remain
dry and uncontaminated during transport, the container uses a heavy-duty
plastic liner.

Aristech engineers mock up lance to

fill container, then seek manufacturer
to build it, supply pneumatic
conveyor
To meet the customers shipment need,
Nicholls and process engineer Jay Cales

Acustomers higher demand

affects shipment need, prompting
a chemical plant to install a
dense-phaseconveyor with
mobile filling lance to efficiently
load 20-metric-toncontainers.

A worker louds BPAprillsinto the bulk container using the fillinglance.

Powder and Bulk Engineering, November 1995

Jr. began experimenting. They tried to

establish two things: a working method
to convey the prilled chemical directly
into the container without moving the
truck once parked, and assurance that
dense-phase pneumatic loading and
bulk shipping wouldnt erode the prills
into dust.
We found a material transporter, got
some hose, and made a filling lance out of

a piece of stainless pipe, said Nicholls.

Then we mounted all that on some scaffolding at the height the lance needed to
go into the container and we backed the
truck up to the scaffolding. We simulated
the lance that we eventually wound up
purchasing.
There were a number of things we and
the customer were looking for with the
second experiment, recalled Nicholls.

The microprocessor-controlled transporter loads material weighments for

dense-phaseconveying.

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Powder and Bulk Engineering, November 1995

We wanted to see what kind of settling

would occur in the bulk container,
whether there was a lot of dust in the
product, what condition the container arrived in, and whether the product significantly eroded - would it break up,
would it turn to powder? So we loaded
two of these containers with the homemade loading system that we put together. We got about 38,000 pounds in
each container.
The experiments were successful; the
product arrived in Japan within specification, and both Aristech and the CUStomer were satisfied. Then Aristech sent
the equipment specification out for bids.

We worked to find a manufacturer who

could deliver a system from the spec I
worked up, said Nicholls. The bid
went out to a couple of companies in the
business of dense-phase conveying.

Pneumaticconveyor manufaciurer
meetsequipment specs, designs and
fabricatesmobile filling lance
Neither bidding manufacturer had previously built a filling lance. Both produced
good designs but only one design had
the required mobility. That same manufacturer had previously supplied Aristech with various material handling
systems, including 12 dense-phase
pneumatic conveyors that worked well
for BPA prills. It was this company that
was able to meet specification.
The specification required the filling
lance to suit both the truck-mounted bulk
container and its plastic liner. The lance
had to be able to raise and lower to handle trucks of varying heights, to tilt at
slight angles, to move forward with precision to penetrate the bulk container,
and to retract when not in use.
The manufacturers solution was to produce a Mobile Truck Lance. The lance is
stainless steel and has seven perforations
along its bottom to let material fill evenly
without having to move the lance or the
truck once positioned. The slot-shaped
perforations measure 2 by 10inches.

Dust from BPA prillconveying is exhausted by a vent hose attached to

the lance and then collectedby this
baghouse.

The lance mounts on a horizontal track

and attaches to a 6-inch conveying line
with a flexible material handling hose to
allow horizontal and vertical movement.
Lance travel range is 15 feet. Dust is exhausted by a vent hose attached to the
lance and is collected by a baghouse. The
dense-phase loading system includes
load cells and a microprocessor-controlled material transporter.
One worker can now load material from
the lance control pendant. Once the
truck is backed up, says Nicholls, we
can move everything to it. The lance is
positioned and inserted into the loading

sleeve of the liner, then driven into the

container.After the batch information is
input to the conveyor control panel, a
worker can start or stop the loading operation from either the conveyor control
panel or the lance control pendant.
Due to environmental and safety concerns for handling BPA dust, Aristech
takes several preventive measures. Beyond using a baghouse for dust collection, all handling equipment is grounded,
including the lance, the conveying hose,
and the truck and bulk container. And as
an added safety measure, the container is
made inert before filling by pumping nitrogen into it to displace the oxygen. If
the oxygen level exceeds 10percent during filling, sensors automatically trigger
a system shutdown.

Automated system bringsflexibility,

monthly savings, and short
turnaround to container-filling
process
The dense-phase conveyors microprocessor-controlled batch program
loads the BPA prills into the transporter,
weighs the load, records the weight in
memory, and conveys the prills to the
mobile lance. It takes about 17 transporter loads to fill the bulk container.
And the batch cycle can be quickly
changed by programming the controller
for different batch weights.
The loading process is aided by custom
lance-perforation boosters that Cale
designed to give the prills a slight thrust
forward for even filling. Now, once the
bulk liner is in place, it only takes one
worker 1 %hoursto load the 20-metricton container. Because the bulk method
of loading the prills requires no bags or
pallets and the container is reusable,
there are substantial monthly savings.

The greatest benefit of the new equipment, says Nicholls, is that Aristech
can now handle the greatly increased orders from Japan.
PBE

Dynamic Air, St. Paul, MN

612/484-2900

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