Manufacturer boosts project activity

Industrial vacuum equipment company Applied Vacuum and Silencing continues to increase its project portfolio by providing full turnkey vacuum product and service solutions for multisectoral clients locally and internationally.

Applied Vacuum completed a project for State-owned power utility Eskom earlier this year, as one of its plants required maintenance and the replacement of water-driven, vacuum-maintaining ejectors, says Applied Vacuum MD Geoff Levy.

The company also replaced several two-stage ejector systems, with shell and tube condensers, for a major petrochemicals company in Africa.

“The system maintains vacuum on a 60 MW condensing turbine-power-producing plant. The original ejector systems were designed for about 7 kPa vacuum but were operating between 10 kPa and 18 kPa. A rule of thumb is that efficiency of the power output increases by about 0.5% for every 1 kPa improvement in vacuum, so the new system would improve overall efficiency by 1.5% to 5.5%,” he explains.

On an international scale, Applied Vacuum has been tasked with designing and manufacturing two-stage ejector sets for the drying and bleaching processes of a client’s facilities in Guatemala and Mexico.

Two four-stage ejector sets were also designed and manufactured for clients in Australia and the UK. Both clients required four-stage ejector sets for deodorising, but the Australian client required a 0.3 kPa ejector set while the UK client required a 0.2 kPa ejector set.

The process of manufacturing and installing ejectors requires Applied Vacuum to deploy its expertise in designing ejector sets after conducting site visits and cooperating with a client’s in-house engineers, in addition to its in-house manufacturing of all equipment.

“Applied Vacuum does all its manufacturing in-house, with a fully equipped fabrication and machine shop. The machine shop includes two computer-numerical controlled (CNC) lathes, three manual lathes and a four-axis CNC mill, along with many other machines. The fabrication workshop welds SMAW/GTAW/GMAW and has back-up machines for each process,” explains Applied Vacuum technical director Ben Affuta.

He adds that the company’s equipment is subjected to a process of rigorous quality-control checks, hydrostatic pressure tests and nondestructive testing to ensure that it meets industry standards.

Levy states that, to date, all the edible oil plants – as well as chemicals and petrochemicals plants in South Africa – have required ejector replacements, which were all completed, or are being completed, by Applied Vacuum.

Despite the challenges faced by the company, owing to the effects of Covid-19 and the “complicated and arduous” processes involved in becoming an approved vendor to Eskom, Affuta says that Applied Vacuum’s level of trustworthiness by large organisations that require high-quality equipment and services is evident in the company’s existing and new project contracts, as well as its ongoing supply of equipment through third-party inspectorates.

Applied Vacuum has been operational for 38 years, manufacturing and supplying equipment for vacuum systems, and in-tank and in-line heating, as well as silencers for steam and/or gas vents, in addition to ejector systems.

“Applied Vacuum is the only original-equipment manufacturer of steam jet ejector systems in Africa and one of about 20 worldwide,” concludes Levy.