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A new nitrogen generation system for a gas supplier

It was critical that this gas manufacturer and supplier could meet growing client demand for nitrogen gas both here in New Zealand, and in Australia. They needed a reliable supply of pure nitrogen gas that would serve their current and future needs.

Nitrogen generation system for a gas supplier

Overview

This New Zealand gas manufacturer and supplier has been in the industry for over 20 years. They specialise in manufacturing and distributing compressed gases and cryogenic liquids to almost all industries, ranging from heavy industry and manufacturing to speciality users such as laboratories throughout New Zealand, and Australia. They also operate one of the largest air separation and hydrogen production facilities in the southern hemisphere, producing oxygen, nitrogen, argon and hydrogen in bulk quantities.

As a large supplier of compressed gases and cryogenic liquids to various businesses and organisations across Australasia, it’s important that they can keep up with client demand, and meet their gas requirements.

The challenge

Our client was finding that their supplier offered an inconsistent, unreliable and costly supply of nitrogen gas. They were unable to keep up with a regular supply to satisfy client demand and, in turn, this meant they couldn’t bring on new business and meet their nitrogen gas needs. Business growth was being affected.

This had been a challenge for quite some time, however, it came to a head as their business continued to grow, and they had increased demand for nitrogen gas. As a result of changes to the market, and as the industry saw greater demand, greater delivery expectations, and greater quality control and purity requirements, this meant they were faced with new challenges around the purity of their nitrogen gas.

They needed a new nitrogen generation system to deliver a consistent supply of gas to volume and purity specifications, as requested. The purity level expectation was very high at 99.999% (less than .001% oxygen content) and their supplier simply wasn’t able to deliver to a high standard consistently.

A reliable and low cost supply of Nitrogen gas, with control over guaranteed and consistent, high purity levels was required to meet this gas suppliers needs, so that they could keep up with client demand.

The solution

Nitropak nitrogen generation system

As a leading supplier of customised and turnkey nitrogen generation systems, we were approached by this gas supplier and manufacturer to see if we could provide a cost-effective and guaranteed supply of pure nitrogen gas, that could meet growing client demand. We were selected for our expertise and our flexible and customised solutions, which would give them the ability to add capacity to the unit, as their demand increased down the track.

We based our nitrogen generation solution on experience, while the design, and build project was very much a team effort involving the sales team, our lead nitrogen designer, our lead nitrogen generation technician, and our engineering team. What we were able to provide to our client was a fully automated, delivered ‘plug n play’ turnkey Nitropak generation system, packaged in a transportable, safe, secure and quiet container. This new system didn’t come without its challenges, however!

It was critical that we were able to supply the Nitropak system to our client before their offshore supply ran dry. The timeline that we were given to complete and provide the new nitrogen generation system proved to be a challenge, especially with COVID-19 thrown into the middle of it! Our overseas supply factory was ordered by the local government to switch to manufacturing oxygen generators in order to support worldwide field hospitals. Like many other businesses that rely on overseas shipments, we also battled with the current shipping delays and supply issues.

In the end, all components arrived at our factory four weeks later than stated at the time of order. However once the delivery arrived, our own manufacturing and assembly team worked tirelessly around the clock to completely test, commission and dispatch the finished containerised Nitropak within a week!

 

Product details

The Nitropak solution was a fully containerised generator that could deliver 18m3/h of nitrogen gas at 99.999% purity and to a high pressure of 320bar, with 240m3 of high-pressure storage.

The complete system included:

  • 22kw screw compressor.
  • -70C desiccant dryer.
  • A combination of small and large air and nitrogen storage vessels.
  • The renowned Nitropak modular generation unit complete with PLC, large HMI touch screen and remote control capability.
  • A high-pressure gas booster compressor, low and high pressure multiple-stage filtration, and a 16 cylinder high-pressure storage bank.

The container also incorporated both passive and forced cool air ventilation, and hot air exhaust.  Check out some photos from the completed project below!

ias_case_study_gif_Nitropak

 

The results

While it’s early days yet, Nitropak’s production results show that the client's problem will be solved and the original objectives will be more than met by this impressive nitrogen generation system.

Over time our client will see a substantial drop in the cost of their nitrogen gas. In fact, our predictions are that the Nitropak will supply the gas at a fifth of the cost of what they are paying now! They will also get to see several benefits, like the convenience and reliability of having an onsite, and on-tap 24/7/365 gas supply. They will also see the rewards of being able to meet increased demand (as their business grows), with a higher nitrogen gas supply capacity, from what they had before.

More immediate benefits that our client will see as a result of the Nitropak system is the efficient production of consistently high purity nitrogen gas – a very important factor in providing continuity to their own industrial and critical-use customer base.

Learn about the entire range of nitrogen generators. Download the brochure