Tranter PHE Heat Exchangers Provide Perfect Service
19 January 2004
Six Tranter PHE Heat Exchangers have just completed their third year of flawless service after being installed at the world’s most modern plant producing petroleum jelly, which is widely used in the cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries.
Fuchs Lubricants has particularly stringent specifications for the equipment, which Tranter PHE was easily able to accommodate using its GC-26 heat exchangers, utilised during the final processing stage at the processing plant in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent. To maintain the jelly in a liquid state, process line temperatures are kept between 90ºC – 100ºC, and the Tranter units use a co-current flow of water at 15ºC - 25ºC to cool the liquid jelly from 100ºC to 80ºC. It is then stored ready for transfer to delivery tankers.
The GC-26 units are manufactured with a large pressing depth to assist the flow of the highly viscous liquid jelly. Fuchs specified the units with cured fluor carbon gaskets, and a 10m² surface area for maximum transfer efficiency.
A typical heat transfer coefficient for a Tranter gasketed plate heat exchanger can be four to five times higher than that of an alternate design, such as a shell and tube exchanger. The modular design of the Tranter exchanger also allows users to easily change parts for servicing, alternate applications, or to increase capacity.
The Fuchs Lubricants petroleum jelly plant is the most modern in the world. A subsidiary of leading lubricants supplier Fuchs Petrolab AG, Fuchs Lubricants is the largest UK producer of soft paraffins (petroleum jellies) for the toiletries and cosmetics industries. Petroleum jelly is widely used as a carrier for drug delivery systems, and as the base for many cosmetics products.
