(Originally printed in Lubricants World, April 2000)

Since blending its first tank of oil in January1997 Advanced Lubrication Specialties (ALS; Bensalem, PA) has steadily followed the path that has transformed many small businesses into large ones: Offer excellent quality and service at a reasonable price, and the customer orders will keep flowing. The company compounds automotive and hydraulic oils, industrial gear lubes, and, specialty cutting fluids for oil companies, automotive-product distributors, original equipment manufacturers, and others from North Carolina to Massachusetts and as far west as Pittsburgh, PA.

One of the "secrets" to developing quality petroleum-based products, ALS believes, is the patented Pulsair pneumatic mixing technology from Pulsair Systems Inc. Bellevue, WA), which uses air or inert gas to mix lubricants in ALS's 10,000-gallon tanks. Unlike traditional mechanical mixing, the Pulsair technology has no moving parts-belts, motors, impellers-that require constant maintenance and considerable electricity. Instead, the technology sequentially introduces--"puluses"--large bubbles at the bottom of the tank, which blend the product as they rise to the top.

ALS says the technology offers faster blending times and dramatically lower energy costs than traditional mechanical mixing, and requires almost no maintenance.

"The largest benefit that we've seen has been low utility costs, due to Pulsair's ability to blend oil without mechanical agitation," says Greg Julian, ALS president. "In addition, because it requires little maintenance, we've not experienced any lost time in the nearly 4 years that we've been using it."

Greg's father, Gary Julian, and his partner, Jeff Browneil, had operated the June11 Corp., an oil brokerage, for 12 years before deciding to add their own blending capabilities. They opened ALS, a wholly owned subsidiary of June11, in rnld-1996 with seven employees. (Gary Julian is treasurer of June11 and vice president of MS.) Today, 26 people work at the ALS plant, with more than 500,000 gallons of indoor product storage in Bensalem, an industrial suburb northeast of Philadelphia, PA

Seeing Is Believing

ALS decided to employ the pulsed-air technology after a demonstration and an analysis convinced them that the technology would yield an excellent product at a cheaper price (in terms of both capital-expenditure and operating costs) than traditional technologies.

Justin Krasley, head blender, recalls, "We were a start-up company at the time-- essentially a few guys and a slab of concrete--so we really didn't do what you might call an in-depth analysis. We looked at the technology, saw what it could do, and knew roughly what electricity would cost. It's cheaper to run a compressor 5 minutes an hour than it is to run a motor for an hour straight.

"We'd heard from others in the industry about the technology, and then saw a presentation using a clear tank that holds about 5 gallons of fluid," Krasley continues. "Anyone who's been in the blending industry for a while, and who's only seen mechanical agitation, is skeptical at first: 'There's no way that air could move the product.' But they dump a little bit of dye in the liquid, and moments later it's mixed. Seeing is believing."

They also viewed a demonstration of the technology on a laptop computer.

"It was several months between the installation of the tanks equipped with the pulsed-air technology and blending of the company's ilrst drop of oil," says Krasley. "But when the time came to use the technology, ft worked as advertised."

ALS installed the Pulsair FT-1 Mixing System in two of its original tanks; the company subsequently added the Pulsair technology to a third 10,000-gallon tank and plans to equip additional tanks with it.

Each tank has seven accumulator plates (one center plate and six equally spaced radial plates) attached to the bottom through which compressed air is introduced. (Accumulator plates are round discs made from carbon steel, stainless steel, polyvinyl chloride, or other compatible materials. Clearance between the accumulator plates and the bottom of the tank is approximately 1/4 inch.)

System Reliability

For Krasley and Mike Cimino, plant manager, system reliability is essential. "Preventive maintenance has been essentially nonexistent since installation of the Pulsair technology," says Cimino.

Adds Krasley, "You save time and money on maintenance for a simple reason: There's nothing to maintain. You don't have to fix, oil, or grease anything and make sure it's running, like you do with a mechanical system. There are no moving parts whatsoever." And since there are no moving parts inside the tank, the tank does not have to be taken out of service to work on the blending equipment.

ALS says it can mix multiple batch sizes quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively. "We blend 150 gallons or 9;500 gallons in our tanks-the volume doesn't really matter, because there are no impellers for the product to cover," says Krasley. "And we can blend 0,500 gallons in about a third of the time, on probably less than a quarter of the electricity.

"Once the oil is in the tank, if we use a mechanical mixer on, say, 500 gallons, it would take at least 3045 minutes to blend it," he continues. "But with the pulsing technology, we can turn 9,500 gallons in 15 minutes. Instead of being able to turn only three or four batches in a day, we can turn more than eight or 10 batches a day in a 16-hour shift. Obviously, the more product that can get out the door, the more money that comes

Adds Greg Julian, "The flexibility of uniformly blending any batch size from 150 to 10,000 gallons has reduced the time we previously spent on planning and scheduling." Cimino notes that the length of the blend time has been "consistently low" throughout the viscosity ranges of the oils that the company blends.

Energy Savings

Although electricity savings are hard to quantity, Krasley assumes that they're at least 75% less than with mechanical agitation. The pulsed-air system uses an air compressor with a 30-hp motor that intermittently pulses air for approximately 5 minutes of each 60 minutes of operation

The pulsing technology does not add air to the product, and, with its filter system, the product is never contaminated. "The biggest question that many people have is, 'Does it add air to the product?'" says Krasley. "When you're done mixing with Pulsair, the product is clear--there are maybe a couple of small air bubbles, but those 'bubble through' and come out of the product. There are no air bubbles when you're done. With a mechanical mixer, the product is latent with air-it's all over the place before it leaves the product."

The mixing system in each tank is controlled with an FT-1 Controller, which regulates the amount of compressed air (or nitrogen or other gas), air pressure, and timing to achieve the most efficient and economical mixing. The controller is pneumatically operated, requiring no electricity. The compressed air or gas flows through pipes that connect the controller to the underside of the tank and ultimately to the center accumulator plate inside the tank, which distributes it to the other accumulator plates.

Lubrication World, April 2000