A leading manufacturer of nucleotides, lysine and monosodium glutamate (MSG) in Indonesia was a user of coal based chain grate fired boilers across their plants. Thermax was given an opportunity to replace their low-efficiency boilers with a Bi-drum FBC boiler in 2016. Satisfied with the quality and performance of the product along with curbing coal consumption, the customer placed a repeat order for 3 x 35 TPH Bi-drum boilers for its other plants. Thermax also supplied and installed four numbers of Electrostatic Precipitators (ESPs) on their existing boilers to achieve particulate emission norms of <100 mg/Nm3.
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Thermax’s boiler at a herbal pharmaceutical major
In 2016, PT Thermax received an order from a leading Indonesian herbal pharmaceutical producer. PT Thermax supplied a Combloc boiler with reciprocating grate suitable to fire high moisture herbal waste. This has helped the customer to reduce its energy cost as earlier the herbal waste was being converted to pellets to be fired in an FBC boiler.
Based on their experience with the boiler and the accrued savings, in 2018, the customer placed a repeat order for another 10 TPH Combloc boiler with reciprocating grate for its sister concern.
IoT brings comfort to guests at Cultural Heritage Resorts
Cultural Heritage Resorts, a part of a reputed Sri Lankan hotel chain, recently partnered with Thermax to adopt an energy-efficient and sustainable approach for providing air conditioning. The resort is using Thermax’s double effect steam-driven vapour absorption chiller of 300 TR capacity, helping them save 4,92,000 units of electricity and reduce carbon emissions by 318 tons annually; equal to planting 31,885 trees or taking 63 cars off the road. The chiller utilises steam generated from biomass boiler to provide comfort cooling to hotel rooms through AHU/FCU units. Understanding the criticality of comfort in the hospitality industry, Thermax is also supporting the chiller with its IoT based service, ‘ROSS’ (Remote Online Support Service), which monitors and controls performance of absorption chillers across the globe. An abnormality was observed in the chiller installed at the Cultural Heritage Resorts due to operational issues. It was detected that vacuum was not within the required limit, resulting in the VAM outlet temperature not being maintained at the set point. Our smart service ‘ROSS’ proactively captured data, detected the root cause and avoided breakdown in air conditioning which would have caused discomfort to guests. Thermax’s experienced service engineer highlighted the issue to the customer and resolved it online by assisting the team to perform blowdown in the vacuum. This has resulted in significant cost savings to the hotel with no downtime.
A facelift for heritage palaces from construction chemicals
Thermax Construction Chemicals played a pivotal role in the successful restoration of two heritage monuments – City Palace of Udaipur and Vadodara’s Laxmi Vilas Palace.
Both projects were executed within a time-frame of 90 days in co-ordination with Ushta Infinity, specialists in the conservation of heritage buildings. The scope of work covered strengthening the existing structural members, increasing the passage area and waterproofing of roofs as well as domes. The Thermax team led by Praveen Khanna used a range of chemicals for seismic retrofitting, epoxy repair, corrosion resistance and elastomeric water proofing.
Says Sanjay Bhude, who heads the Construction Chemical Group, “This unique project will add to our proven expertise gained from executing over a 100 structural repairs and rehabilitation projects in many countries.”
Air cooled condensers to save water for cement units
Thermax SPX Energy Technologies Ltd, the joint venture, bagged an order for seven air cooled steam condensers from the cement conglomerate, Nuvoco Vistas Corporation (formerly Lafarge). The condensers will be installed at cement plants in Rajasthan, Chattisgarh and Jharkhand – three for waste heat recovery systems (WHRS) and four for captive power plants (CPP).
Air Cooled Condensers (ACCs) utilise ambient air for cooling – an effective alternative to the wet cooling towers used earlier by captive power plants in the cement industry. ACCs are environment friendly in many ways. They save water in water-scarce areas since no water is required for cooling. They reduce the use of chemicals for water treatment, bring down corrosion in auxiliaries, and eliminate plume, blowdown and treatment of associated discharge water.
The scope of the project includes design, engineering, manufacturing, construction and commissioning at site as well as performance guarantee testing before handing over. The commissioning of the WHRS and CPP units will take place over the next 12 months. This is the JV’s largest order from a single customer, bagged against stiff competition.
Chillers for fertiliser and chemical major
Thermax successfully installed and commissioned three steam-driven absorption chillers of 994 TR each and two hot water driven absorption chillers of 815 TR each at Chambal Fertilizers and Chemical Limited (CFCL), India. This order was received from TOYO Engineering, a Japanese EPC company. Thermax chillers are catering to the process cooling needs at their urea and diammonium phosphate plant. The chilled water at 7ºC is used to cool the compressor inlet air supplied to the gas turbines, increasing their efficiency and output.
Chillers at RCF and heavy water board
Thermax successfully commissioned an 800 TR Triple Effect absorption chiller at Rashtriya Chemicals & Fertilizers (RCF) in Thal, Maharashtra. It is the first triple effect chiller installation for inlet air cooling of process air compressor (PAC). The chiller runs on steam at 25 barg pressure, derived from a Heat Recovery Steam Generator (HRSG) operating on the gas turbine exhaust. This project is a part of their debottlenecking process in order to increase the overall production.
Another two units of 1000 TR half-effect absorption chiller was recently commissioned at the Heavy Water Board located in Manuguru, Telangana. The chiller is specially designed to recover heat from low-temperature process condensate by cooling it from 68oC to 60oC.
Thermax footprint in Latin America
Thermax has now expanded its global presence to Argentina, by recently commissioning a tail gas combustor for Cabot S.A.I.C (a subsidiary of Cabot Corporation).
The installation comprises a natural gas-cum-tail gas (CO) fired combustor, generating 38 MW of hot flue gases by incinerating carbon black tail gas. These flue gases are cooled in a waste heat recovery boiler (supplied by a local vendor), to produce 45 TPH of saturated steam at 22 barg pressure. Thermax bagged the order due to its technical expertise and experience in designing and fabricating the complete system of tail gas combustion (combustor + waste heat boiler). Cabot had prior experience of working with Thermax at one of its subsidiaries, Pt. Cabot in Indonesia in 2006.
With emission norms becoming stringent, tail gas combustion units are becoming increasingly popular and customers are looking for sustainable solutions – reducing pollution at their facilities while generating steam/power in the bargain. Thermax has so far, supplied more than 20 such units to diverse industries.
Managing effluents for a fertiliser major
Chambal Fertilisers and Chemicals Limited (CFCL), one of the largest private sector fertiliser producers in India, partnered with Thermax for ‘Total Water Management System’ at Kota, Rajasthan. In the recent past, the fertiliser sector has seen tremendous growth, mainly due to the Government impetus on making India self-sufficient. With growth, the industry also faces the challenge of tackling effluent treatment and optimising the use of water, getting scarce by the day. CFCL’s water management initiative was part of its expansion project for manufacturing 2,000 metric tonnes of ammonia per day (MTPD) and 4,000 MTPD of urea. The system consists of a pretreatment and demineralisation plant, condensate polishing unit and an effluent recycle plant. The effluent recycle plant, based on ultrafiltration and Reverse Osmosis (RO) membrane system, recovers 91% of water. The RO system treats hardness and silica content in the water resulting in high-quality water having Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) less than 400 ppm. On the other hand, an advanced membrane based UF system is used for the removal of all types of fine colloidal impurities along with organics.
Thermax wins Rs. 279 crore order for a cogeneration plant
As a part of the customer’s drive to reduce energy consumption as well as dependence on grid power, Thermax concluded a repeat order of INR 279 crore from a leading public-sector fertiliser company to set up their captive cogeneration plant at Trombay. The project is for a GTG (Gas Turbine Generator) – cum-HRSG (Heat Recovery Steam Generator) based cogen plant of 50 MW capacity on an EPC basis. Commenting on the win, Unny says, “The need for reliability of power supply coupled with energyefficient technologies makes cogeneration a preferred choice for customers, where we have secured multiple orders recently.” The scope of supply includes designing, engineering, manufacturing, construction and commissioning of the cogeneration plant within a time span of 24 months.
