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WPS Headquarters
1601 W. Diehl Road
Naperville, Il 60563-1198
630-305-1000 Phone
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7705 Highway 90-A
Sugar Land, TX 77478
281-263-7000 Phone

Nalco 360 Service Identifies Acid Leak at Customer in Mexico.

Customers expect Nalco to deliver reliable solutions which help ensure smooth operation of their process. However, unexpected changes in the customer process can lead to critical shut downs if they are not addressed in a timely manner.

The Nalco 360 expert center is continuously monitoring systems around the clock and often discovers potential problems before they become a more serious situation.

In a recent instance, the Nalco 360 expert center helped to prevent catastrophic failure of a heat exchanger, and potential shutdown of the customer’s Copper Smelting process. The Nalco 360 Expert Center notified the local team about the critical alarm by phone, so they were about to take immediate action to resolve the problem.

Situation

Foreword: Due to current Smelter production needs, only 1 of 2 Acid Plants were operating, placing a larger burden on Acid Plant #1. After a short period of time, the heat exchanger experienced a tube failure, resulting in an influx of acid.

Tuesday	2:05 am	pH readings drop below set point.
Tuesday	2:11 am	360 expert center receives a low pH alarm from the controller. Click here to view the actual chart of the event.
Tuesday	2:14 am	Nalco 360 experts troubleshoot alarm, the immediately place a phone call to the local sales engineer to notify them of the problem.
Tuesday	2:20 am	Nalco 360 experts send the following email message to the customer and Nalco Sales Engineer as follow up to the telephone contact: “pH Low (5.42 units.) pH has dropped nearly 2.5 units in the last 3 hours. Check for any acid leak into the system.”
Tuesday	2:20 am	Nalco Sales Engineer contacts the customer.
Tuesday	2:20 pm	Customer had noticed the decrease in pH readings, but had not yet identified the root cause. Armed with the additional information from Nalco 360, the customer was able to quickly diagnose the problem and begin immediate steps to resolve the situation.
Tuesday	4:00 am	Customer resolves situation, heat exchanger is repaired, conditions begin returning to normal.

Their Success

The customer was able to protect their valuable assets once armed with the knowledge delivered by the Nalco 360 Service. The customer was very impressed with the response time and proactive response delivered for this alarm. They are currently working to connect their remaining 3D TRASAR controllers to Nalco 360.

For more information on Nalco 360 Service, contact us.