Centriquip has cut the cost of maintaining the decanter centrifuges at Scottish Power in Glasgow by exchanging the old stainless steel and tungsten discharge port liners with new ceramic ones.

Centriquip has cut the cost of maintaining the decanter centrifuges at Scottish Power in Glasgow by two-thirds by exchanging the old stainless steel and tungsten discharge port liners with new ceramic ones. The new liners last three times as long before they need changing. They're cheaper too! Scottish Power uses 12 Andritz-Guinard decanter centrifuges in continuous operation to dewater sewage sludge.

Each machine has 10 discharge ports for evacuating the solid phase from the machine.

The ports have sacrificial liners which, in common with most manufacturers, are made from tungsten in a stainless steel housing.

Until now these liners have worn quickly requiring the machine to be stripped for maintenance every 3 months.

The new liners from Centriquip, however, are made from a harder-wearing ceramic material.

They are half the cost of the tungsten liners and last three times as long.

Keith Burdon is the Maintenance Supervisor for Scottish Power.

In a recent interview he said that the new liners had made a significant saving in time and maintenance costs.

'We shut the machines down for routine checking every three months.

We use an endoscope to check the condition of the liners and strip the machines only if they need changing.

A strip down takes us a week.

The ceramic liners are lasting much better than the old ones so major maintenance is needed less often,' he said.

Centriquip is the largest UK manufacturer of decanter centrifuges and uses ceramic liners on all its new equipment.

The company also services and repairs any make of decanter and can supply ceramic discharge port liners for any make of machine.