Petronas, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Petronas in Kuala Lumpur owns the largest tank that uses PULSAIR mixing. The 80' diameter, 2.6 million-gallon tank mixes in two to three hours using a PULSAIR FT-1-29 engineered system. This is substantially less time than they anticipated; similar tanks equipped with side entry mixers often take days to thoroughly mix them.

The Petronas project involved putting PULSAIR into two 650,000 U.S. gallon tanks and two 2.6 million gallon storage tanks, thus converting them to blending vessels. The largest tank mixed by PULSAIR previous to Petronas was a 1.2 million gallon wastewater tank at Texaco in S.C.

The four tanks are operated by a single PLC-based controller called the PULSAIR Programmable Controller or PPC-8. Its features include on delay, specific mixing times, pulse rate (dwell control), tank selection and pulse enunciator lights. The controller operates only one injection valve at a time regardless of how many tanks are in operation, which makes the entire system very economical to operate. All four tanks can be operated simultaneously. When the PULSAIR system is energized during the filling cycle, mixing time is less than 60 minutes after the tank has been filled.

Each 650,000 gallon tank has thirteen accumulator plates. Five plates are grouped at the center and plumbed together. interconnected. The other eight plates are equally spaced along a radial arc about half way between the center group and the perimeter of the tank. The eight radial plates are plumbed together into two groups of four plates each. There are three injection valves, one for each group of accumulator plates.

There are twenty-nine accumulator plates in the 2.6 million gallon tank. Five plates are plumbed together and grouped at the center of the tank. The other twenty-four plates are plumbed together into six groups of four plates each and evenly distributed about the tank. The 29 plate system has seven injection valves, one for each group of plates. The system controller opens the valves one at a time. This mixing technique minimizes the instantaneous demand for compressed air.

The injection valves for both systems are air piloted and actuated by nylon pneumatic tubing that carries the signal from an explosion-proof enclosure cabinet mounted near the valves. This makes the entire system explosion proof. The PPC is mounted inside the control room.

PULSAIR has shortened the mixing time for each tank, which means that throughput has been increased. This has significantly increased the plant’s capacity. By purchasing a PPC-8 Controller for four tanks, Petronas has the excess capacity to add four additional tanks at a later date.

Petronas has asked PULSAIR to design a system for one of their large tanks – 40,000 metric tons. The tank is 186 feet in diameter. We have proposed a 95-accumulator plate system operated by 19 injection valves. The plates will be arranged in 19 groups of five plates, evenly distributed about the tank bottom. Presently, the project is in design. We are excited about the possibilities for mixing tanks of this magnitude.