Kingfisher Industrial Ltd, Cradley Heath, England, launched its K-Guard boiler protection system at this year’s Resource Waste Management (RWM) event in Birmingham, England, as well as promoting their very own K-Clad 800 wear resistant chromium carbide plate.

The protection system was developed after a waste-to-energy facility told Kingfisher its ash and dust plant suffers from both degradation and system blockages resulting in the need for the plant to be brought off line to cater for pipe repairs and replacements or the un-blocking of pipes and associated equipment.

Following a visit by the plant’s engineers to the Resource and Waste Management exhibition (RWM) in 2014, they identified what they perceived to be technology that may assist them in solving the problems they were experiencing. After discussion with Kingfisher, engineers from Kingfisher demonstrated ways were these issues could be alleviated by enhanced routing and sizing design alongside incorporating ceramic technology within the pipe system that would operate trouble free for up to 10 years at present tonnage rates.

After two years of meetings and reviews the plant secured sufficient budget and buy in from the owners to enhance the existing ash and dust plant conveying systems. A tender document was issued early spring 2016, where a number of parties were requested to submit their proposal for a full re-design, manufacture and commissioning of an upgraded ash disposal system.

After a thorough contractual, technical and commercial process was undertaken with all tenderers, the decision was made to place an order for circa $1.3 million with Kingfisher.
Kingfisher’s operations team visited site and identified issues related to the redesign of the system and placed great emphasis on both the system longevity to counter the pipe degradation taking place, along with improving accessibility and directional routing of the piping system to eliminate pressure drops, which was causing the blockages.