The utilization of hydrogen is widespread. Either in refining or in the production of ammonia as well as in many other chemical processes, hydrogen is a substance which is of the essence for the global industries. Several countries and regions in the world are now discussing the energy transformation from fossil to regenerative. This leads to the need to store green energy generated by wind and solar power in hydrogen – either pure or as a derivative like methane or ammonia. Hence, the market of hydrogen is predicted to rise like a star.
The fluid in this particular application was specified as “not entirely clean”. The installed DN 350 PN 160 angle seat valve suffered under these conditions, leading to a complete change of wearing parts every 6 to 8 weeks. Enhanced control characteristics, leakage class VI at 119 bar(g) and limited available installation space were further challenging requirements.
Due to much higher CAPEX the contract included a minimum guaranteed maintenance-free operation of 1.5 years (in contrast to less than 2 months of the replaced valve).
Up to now, 2.5 years later, the valve still runs smoothly and provides excellent control and process uptime.