Fuel Polishing System from King Tanktechnic

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Fuel storage tank upgrades which really work!

We at King Tanktechnic Ltd are proud to be part of an international “Family” of Companies within Europe. All the “Family” members have attained the necessary high level of expertise to be awarded an exclusive license to undertake “ADISA” tank lining.

We were awarded our license in 1997 and since then we have successfully lined 770 tanks.

These tanks, at the time of writing this article are safely storing 18,728.900 litres of petroleum product (Yes that is eighteen million plus!) The lining materials and installation have been tested by fully accredited European test houses, namely – the German Institute of Building Technology. The German BAM.PTB and TuV. The Swiss SEV/ASE.

Lining a 15,000 litre fuel tankimage courtesy of Mr Ratislav Rasus
As a result, the ADISA lining system has been proved impervious to Future Fuels, Euro Fuel, all grades of present day motor fuels including ethanol enriched E5, E10 and Bio diesels.

In addition to the lining of UST’s, approval was also given to the installation of the “Dopa 1” double skin lining system to flat bottomed storage tanks. This system lines the base and approximately one metre up the shell wall and is named the TK system. Backed by this approval, it is in extensive use throughout Europe.

A family member worthy of special mention is IDOPS Co-operative of Bratislava.
Using the ADISA system and lining materials, they have completed the double skin lining of the Czechoslovakian strategic reserve fuel storage installation. No mean feat as the installation consists of twelve tanks each capable of holding nine million litres and another six, each capable of holding fifteen million litres.

All the tanks were fully double skin lined including bases, support pillars and roof. The photographs attached to this article show the enormity of the project which ran from 2007 to 2009. Moving on to a new service King Tanktechnic Ltd can now offer to run in tandem with our tank lining operation. We are now equipped to carry out safe and proper remote tank cleaning and fuel polishing.

Shot of a 15,000 fuel tank lining project
image courtesy of Mr Ratislav Rasus
We developed this service to enable us to comply with requests from oil companies which will not allow man entry into petroleum tanks unless they are gas free. We have a reputation for not doing anything unless we can do it properly and in order to be correctly equipped, the directors of King Tanktechnic, as part of their research into this area, travelled to the USA to witness the long established and successful systems in place there.

Using the information gleaned from meetings and demonstrations in America we have designed and built the King Tanktechnic Fuel Polishing Unit (FPU) which is pictured here. As you can see, we have not entered into this half heartedly.

Our new FPU is without doubt the largest and most efficient mobile unit in the UK. In fact it is at least the size of the American units and we all know how large everything is there!
In addition to that used in the USA we have incorporated equipment used by Royal Air Force and N.A.T.O. air bases to de water aircraft fuel.

We worked on the principle that if a Harrier or Tornado is travelling at mach one, the last thing the pilot wants is water in the fuel creating an ice slug blockage! By using the same equipment – we know that we can remove water suspended in fuel.

King Tank Fuel Polishing UnitOur FPU’s throughput and capacity allows its use, on a single visit to a typical six or seven tank filling station site or a distribution depots’ storage tanks working in conjunction with our Tank Cleaning Unit (TCU pictured) to remove the waste and sludge from site as part of the process if the need arises. 

The FPU is capable of a throughput of 1,000 litres per minute if necessary. This method of cleaning tanks removes contaminates, including water without the need for man entry.
Fuel passes through a series of filters which remove accumulated debris and sludge from inside the tank. It removes all particulates down to 3 microns (A human hair is approximately 70 microns thick) Fuel is returned to the tank during the cleaning process and this agitates and suspends any contaminates in the fuel.

The cleaned fuel is then passed through the King Tank Coalescer Cycle phase process. This removes all water particulates left in the fuel. The Coalescer phase process can reduce the amount of mixed water from 5,000 parts per million (ppm) to 5 ppm in a single pass.

It provides a total process which removes debris and sludges from tank walls and bottoms by using the fuel as the process medium. Finally polishing and returning the fuel with its optimum quality and integrity retained. While extending the life of the pumping system it also gives our customers clean burning uncontaminated fuel.

We are all accustomed now to seeing “Professional amateurs” using unitary equipment consisting of air driven pumps and IBC’s carried in a van but we at King Tanktechnic have never subscribed to doing anything unless we do it properly.

There is a wonderful and quite famous quotation from Red Adair and it is “If you think it’s expensive to employ a Professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur!” Red Adair (1915 – 2004) said that whilst standing in a burning oilfield in Kuwait.

Experience counts, especially when combined with skilled and trained personnel working safely with state of the art equipment. Our family of companies prides itself on always aiming for best practice. Raymond King