Paul Boughton
The latest Racor hydrocarbon filters from Parker Hannifin, are being used to filter more than 45 million litres of diesel each month in one of the biggest opencast coal mines in Latin America.
By installing filtration at its fuel storage tank farm, the mine has considerably reduced its maintenance costs and increased the service life of its highway trucks, tractors, excavators and generators.
Located on the north coast of Columbia, the coal mine plays a significant role in the Columbian economy, making continual developments in the cleanliness and environmentally friendliness of its production processes in order to compete globally.
With such a high consumption of diesel fuel, the facility looked for an effective engineering solution to reduce its operating costs: the contamination of fuel by solids, sediment and water.
To minimise this problem, the mine invited local distributor, Fuel Filters de Columbia, to install Parker Racor hydrocarbon filters at its fuel tank storage farm, in order to clean the diesel that they were buying from their providers.
The mine was so impressed with the results, that it subsequently asked the distributor to install additional filtration systems with high efficiency and high capacity media for tank dispatch and diesel recirculation systems, improving engine performance still further.
Once installed, considerable field testing was carried out and the results obtained evaluated by certified laboratories. These companies recorded significant improvements in fuel cleanliness: original contamination levels of 30mg/l of sediment and 400ppm of water were reduced by approximately 500 per cent to just 6mg/l and 70ppm after installation of the Parker filters.
As a result, the mine has been able to extend the life of its generator engines to 23,000 hours, reduce the cost of maintaining all of its electronic injection systems, and extend the life of its on board fuel filters. Additionally, the mine’s productivity has been optimised due to improvements in the reliability and availability of its mining equipment, while fuel consumption and soot index levels have both been reduced.
These improvements were made possible due to the fact that engine oil has the major task of cleaning the engine of combustion process deposits. Clean and dry diesel generates a lower level of undesirable combustion by-products in a well maintained engine, extending lube oil change-out intervals. The biggest improvements made by the installation of Parker’s Racor hydrocarbon coalescers, separators and pre-filters were in the mine’s generator engines, with engine oil and oil filter life extended from 250 hours to 1000 hours.
By improving the cleanliness of the fuel used by the Columbian coal mine, the Parker technology has maximised the performance and operating life of plant and equipment throughout the facility, while at the same time reducing maintenance costs and downtime. As a result, the filters have made a significant positive impact on the mine’s efficiency, productivity and profitability.
For more information, visit www.parker.com
By installing filtration at its fuel storage tank farm, the mine has considerably reduced its maintenance costs and increased the service life of its highway trucks, tractors, excavators and generators.
Located on the north coast of Columbia, the coal mine plays a significant role in the Columbian economy, making continual developments in the cleanliness and environmentally friendliness of its production processes in order to compete globally.
With such a high consumption of diesel fuel, the facility looked for an effective engineering solution to reduce its operating costs: the contamination of fuel by solids, sediment and water.
To minimise this problem, the mine invited local distributor, Fuel Filters de Columbia, to install Parker Racor hydrocarbon filters at its fuel tank storage farm, in order to clean the diesel that they were buying from their providers.
The mine was so impressed with the results, that it subsequently asked the distributor to install additional filtration systems with high efficiency and high capacity media for tank dispatch and diesel recirculation systems, improving engine performance still further.
Once installed, considerable field testing was carried out and the results obtained evaluated by certified laboratories. These companies recorded significant improvements in fuel cleanliness: original contamination levels of 30mg/l of sediment and 400ppm of water were reduced by approximately 500 per cent to just 6mg/l and 70ppm after installation of the Parker filters.
As a result, the mine has been able to extend the life of its generator engines to 23,000 hours, reduce the cost of maintaining all of its electronic injection systems, and extend the life of its on board fuel filters. Additionally, the mine’s productivity has been optimised due to improvements in the reliability and availability of its mining equipment, while fuel consumption and soot index levels have both been reduced.
These improvements were made possible due to the fact that engine oil has the major task of cleaning the engine of combustion process deposits. Clean and dry diesel generates a lower level of undesirable combustion by-products in a well maintained engine, extending lube oil change-out intervals. The biggest improvements made by the installation of Parker’s Racor hydrocarbon coalescers, separators and pre-filters were in the mine’s generator engines, with engine oil and oil filter life extended from 250 hours to 1000 hours.
By improving the cleanliness of the fuel used by the Columbian coal mine, the Parker technology has maximised the performance and operating life of plant and equipment throughout the facility, while at the same time reducing maintenance costs and downtime. As a result, the filters have made a significant positive impact on the mine’s efficiency, productivity and profitability.
For more information, visit www.parker.com
