Aluminum Pellet Catalyst

The HCV Valve has double the life of other conventional quarter-turn, metal seated ball valves in a demanding catalyst loading application.

Challenge

The customer has extensively tested both resilient and metal seated quarter turn ball valves in their gravity-fed catalyst loading application. The catalyst consists of aluminum pellets ranging from 1/4 inch to 3/8 inch in size. The average life of resilient seated valves was 2 to 3 months and metal seated designs lasted up to 6 months.

Solution

The customer chose to install the HCV Valve in this application and it was still functioning successfully after 11 months.  They de-pressured the line, removed the original cartridge, installed a spare cartridge and had the line back in service in less than 30 minutes.  The original cartridge was returned to Chromatic for servicing.  The internals were found to be in excellent condition other than minor abrasions on the metal seat.  A new seat was manufactured, the cartridge pressure tested, and then sent back to the customer as a spare cartridge.  The customer has since replaced all their catalyst feeding valves with the HCV Valve.