Cellier, Blending and Formulation Solutions, part of ABB France, has brought to the market the High Viscosity Drum Decanting System, designed to pump and dose highly viscous liquids stored in drums and incorporating them into the formulation process.

Widely used in the chemicals industry to store high-value raw materials and additives, drums and barrels regularly require emptying, dosing, and rinsing. Increasingly, the materials being kept within have a high viscosity level.

“Viscosity determines how well the material will flow in production and transportation. Sticky and thicker materials are harder to pump which makes the decanting process longer, more energy intensive and impacts the production process cycle time. The Drum Decanting process remains largely manual and in order to break down the viscosity, drum ovens are used. Reaching extremely high temperatures these can be dangerous to operate, can damage the chemicals’ properties and have an impact on plant energy consumption,” said Nicolas Vairyo, R&D technology manager, Cellier B&F solutions, ABB.

ABB’s High Viscosity Drum Decanting System is an automated station designed to increase pumping capacity of highly viscous products by up to 20,000 centistokes and to reduce operator drum handling time by 50%. Immediately after pumping is completed, materials are automatically transferred via pigged lines to its required destination.