July 2016 - Cartridge Filter Insights 67

Sales of filter systems will exceed $70 billion in 2016. This includes filtration of water, oil, ambient air, stack gases, process slurries, compressed air and any other fluids. Sales of the filters and media will exceed $35 billion. The remaining $35 billion includes items such as fans, pumps, valves, piping and controls. The $35 billion filter market is composed of five market segments which will generate more than $1.5 billion each. Sixteen segments will generate more than $800 million each. Twelve segments will generate more than $200 million each.

Residential/ Commercial	Mobile	Health- care	Power	Sanitary/ Clean Tech	Energy	Water Wastewater	Other
Single Family	Passenger Vehicle	Hospitals	Stationary Diesel	Food	Oil And Gas Extraction	Municipal Drinking Water	Metal Working
Multiple Family	Trucks	Dental Offices	Gas Turbines	Pharmaceuticals	Oil And Gas Transport	Rural Drinking Water	Textiles
Government/ Defense	Off Road	Outpatient Care	Coal Fired	Animal Research	Gas Processing	Municipal Wastewater	Pulp And Paper
Retail Stores	Rail	Medical Device	Biomass/ WTE	Aquaculture	Refining	Desalination	Mining
Hotels/Resorts		Veterinary Facilities	Nuclear	Agricultural	Coal To Chemicals	Point Discharge Wastewater	Steel/Ferrous Metals
Office Buildings	Marine		Geothermal	Semiconductors	LNG	Irrigation	Non Ferrous Metals
Commercial Buildings	Aerospace		Hydro	FPD, Memory, Other Electronics	Oil Sands	Flood Control	Other Industries
Educational Institutions			Wind			Remediation	Chemicals Petrochemicals

The largest product segment is stationary industrial liquid cartridges with a 2016 market of $17 billion. This is followed by the mobile liquid cartridge market. Mobile air filters, hydraulic and compressed air filters, cross-flow filtration, liquid macrofiltration, dust collection, HVAC filters and coalescing filters are the remaining product segments.

Detailed forecasts of these markets are available in the following publications:

The market to remove liquids from oil, fuels and gas is close to $2 billion/yr. and includes a range of devices to remove both small and large droplets as well as water in emulsified solutions. Water and other liquids need to be removed from natural and synthetic gas. Common applications are:

Natural gas processing consists of separating hydrocarbons and fluids from pure natural gas to produce ‘pipeline quality’ dry natural gas to be fed to gas transportation systems. High efficiency cartridge L/G coalescers are used for vapor removal from the gas stream during processing and transportation. Typically, they are used downstream from other separation equipment including centrifugal separators, mist eliminators and mesh pads

Liquid-liquid coalescers can be stationary or mobile. Applications include oil in upstream applications as well as fuels. In the stationary segment, the major players, account for approximately 30 percent of the revenues. The media is supplied by a limited number of companies such as Lydall and Hollingsworth & Vose.

Mercury exists in natural gas in the vapor phase and must be removed prior to contact with aluminum components in processing plants. Carbon beds have typically been used for this removal. Multiple carbon beds are needed. One is regenerated while the other is removing the mercury. Some of the newer sources of gas such as found in Malaysia are experiencing mercury levels 40 times higher than found elsewhere. The problems caused by frequent regeneration inspired considerable research As a result, new technologies such as ionic liquid impregnated pellets are now available. They show much higher holding capacity than carbon beds. System suppliers are providing multiple vessels with switching valves and regeneration processes complete with blowers.

The best way to raise prices without losing business is to provide a product which justifies a higher initial price. To accomplish this you need to:

McIlvaine is currently preparing a Decision Guide on choke valves for oil and gas applications. These are tough applications and require custom valves designed for severe service. This is only part of the story according to George Gorman of the Valve Institute. The success or failure of a valve rests not only on the valve merits but on how it is applied. Subsea pipeline valve needs are different from sub-sea Christmas tree needs. Both are certainly different from the needs at the surface or on shore. The best valve choice requires detailed knowledge of the unit operations. When it comes to subsea valves his Institute is dedicated to providing insights on best choices with separate training courses on subsea pipeline and Christmas tree valves.

But what are the needs of the long-time valve practitioner? Does he need an even more robust system? Input from a number of both supplier and end user experts in the McIlvaine Insights discussions leads to the conclusion that considerable analysis and discussion is needed. Muktiadi Rahardjo of Shell is the valve and sealing specialist at the Shell Pernis refinery and, based on this experience, recommends better communication relative to valve issues. He cited a lack of application knowledge on the part of some vendors and the inability to utilize the wisdom existing within the end user community.

If you rank the impact of a product on the process, the valve is at the bottom of the rankings. The product using the valve, e.g. a pump system, will be more important by virtue of the fact that it typically would include a pump and at least three valves. The scrubber company product which includes the valves, pumps, fans, nozzles and scrubbing tower is obviously of most impact on the process. So, if we agree that process knowledge is necessary to provide the best valves, then it follows that even more process knowledge is needed for suppliers of the sub processes What can we conclude from all of this?

· IN ORDER TO DEVELOP A SUPERIOR PRODUCT YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND THE PROCESS WHERE THE PRODUCT WILL BE APPLIED.

· TO CONTINUE TO PROVIDE THE SUPERIOR PRODUCT YOU HAVE TO KEEP UP WITH PROCESS CHANGES AND NEW REGULATORY AND OTHER CUSTOMER NEEDS.

· FOCUS YOUR PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT EFFORTS BY PRIORITIZING CUSTOMER NEEDS IN SUCH A WAY TO MAXIMIZE MARGINS AND PROFITABILITY.

The best product is defined here as the product with the lowest total cost of ownership. This definition is couched in the broadest terms. It has to take into account the severity of the service but also the criticality. A peaking gas turbine which cycles a few times per year and can be easily accessed for maintenance is in a non-critical application compared to the base-loaded turbine which is in operation 24/7 and cycles hundreds of times per year.

It is easy to pick the lowest cost product but much more difficult when you have to assess the lifetime cost based on both severity and criticality. The first step in creating a convincing program is to understand how decisions will be and could be made.

Decision making is a series of classifications. Whether it is the initial bidders list, the criteria in the specifications or the ultimate selection the decision maker is moving from one set of classifications to the next.

· The elements of the classifications are: what, which, why and how. In order to be successful you have to convince some people of just the “what” and “which” and others you also need to add the “why.” The “how” is the big challenge which provides credibility to the other elements.

· What are the classifications? If you are going to remove SO₂should you consider wet limestone, wet lime, dry sorbent injection, spray driers, or seawater scrubbing?

· How does the product perform uniquely enough to justify the prediction that it will result in the lowest total cost of ownership?

· The what, which and why can be communicated through normal sales channels. The decision guides add clarity. The problem is that the credibility depends on the “how.” It is a lot easier to claim the highest efficiency or lowest maintenance cycle than it is to prove it.

McIlvaine recognizes the challenge of convincing customers that a product has the lowest total cost of ownership and has a whole program to address it:
4 Lane Knowledge Bridge to the End User