Tuthill Blowers Provide Steam Compression Solutions

Smart industrial operations look for ways to reduce waste and decrease expenses. Gasho recommends Tuthill M-D Pneumatics blowers for steam compression solutions to accomplish both goals at once.

It is common for industrial operations running processes that require intermediate-pressure steam (20 – 25 psig) to meet those needs by letting down high-pressure steam across a throttling valve. At the same time, many of those same operations are venting low-pressure steam from evaporator or cooker processes to the atmosphere or condensing it in a cooling tower.

Steam compression allows low-pressure waste steam to be mechanically compressed or boosted to a higher pressure so that it can be reused instead of wasted. Using a blower to increase the vapor pressure and thus the temperature of the latent heat in steam makes it usable for a variety of processes. Recompression with a blower requires only a small fraction of the energy required to raise an equivalent amount of steam in a boiler.

As an illustration, Tuthill provides the example of a petrochemical plant that vents 8 PSIG steam to the atmosphere. At the same time, this plant employs a process that imposes a continuous requirement on the boiler for approximately 5,300 pounds per hour (lb/hr) of 23 PSIG steam. This task can be accomplished by a Tuthill M-D Pneumatics™ 9012 PD Plus blower operating at 2100 RPM, 143 BHP (107 kW).

When compared to the costs of an equivalent quantity of 23 PSIG steam being supplied by an 80% efficient natural gas-fired boiler, the annual energy savings is estimated to be over $440,000. (For additional details, see the Tuthill application bulletin)

Contact us to learn more about how Tuthill blowers can enhance your process efficiency.