【Haichuan: Lessons from Others】Using wall-climbing robots to remove dust inside reactors to assist in the conversion of the equipment for other purposes

Thread Content

Wall-climbing robot aids in the shift of production processes Recently, the 800,000-ton/year full-density polyethylene plant of Guangdong Petrochemical Company successfully shifted to using seed material of the HPR-1018HA grade, producing 5,000 tons of metallocene polyethylene products. This successful transition to another production process is attributed to the wall-climbing robot, which can safely and efficiently clean the expanded section of the powder, thereby reducing the risk of caking and agglomeration in the reactor. 　　Before switching the full-density polyethylene plant to another product, the dust inside the reactor must be removed completely; otherwise, it will cause production fluctuations. Therefore, the company’s Second Chemical Department, in collaboration with robot manufacturers, developed a wall-crawling robot for purging reactors. 　　“The robot is equipped with 3 powerful blowing nozzles and a multi-angle camera, allowing for direct observation of dust accumulation inside the reactor. Driven by the strong magnet at the bottom, it can be directly attached to the wall of the vessel and move freely inside the reactor, offering a wide cleaning range and high cleanliness. ”Wang Kai, a process engineer in the company’s Chemical Engineering Department 2, explained that with the use of wall-crawling robots, it took only 3 hours to purge the expanded section of the reactor, and especially all the dust at the top of the reactor dome was completely removed. 　　Wang Kai explained that two significant changes occurred after the use of the wall-climbing robot for cleaning for the first time. First, there was no residue of polyethylene powder on the reactor dome, which helped improve the quality of the metallocene-based film material; the number of crystal particles in the newly produced polyethylene products was significantly reduced after film extrusion compared to the early stages of operation. Second, a metallocene catalyst was used in this switch to a different production process, and this catalyst requires very precise control over the material level in the expanded section of the reactor. During this cleaning process, no issues related to the flow state being affected by the shedding of pieces of material were observed. This ensures the smooth commissioning of the full-density polyethylene plant as well as the high quality of metallocene catalyst products.