LeonPulse ltd.

Soot Gone (SG) - Online Detonation Soot Blower System

TechnicalDescription

The shortcomings of conventional well-known soot cleaning devices such as steam

soot blowers, rappers, sonic horns, shot cleaning systems, water cannons, water
sprayers, shot dropping, explosives etc. are pushing the operators and inventors to
look for more efficient cleaning solutions.
The goal they wish to achieve is obvious: the device has to be better than the
existing cleaning equipment, that is to say, it has to meet the following
requirments:

✓ Higher efficiency
✓ Lower capital and operation cost
✓ Minimal and /or simple maintenance activities
✓ No necessity for spare parts
✓ User-friendly
✓ Easy and simple installation
✓ Universal for all different places and surfaces of boilers to be cleaned, such as:

• Screens and different bundles

• Super heaters
• Economizers
• Air Preheaters
• Filters
• Ducts

Soot Gone (SG) has been originally invented and designed for online cleaning of
almost all heat-transfer surfaces of fuel burning equipment from sedimentations
of ash, slag, soot, etc.

SG has proven itself as a very effective and as a super reliable device with almost
no maintenance requirements. The unique design of Pulse Generators guarantees
the super reliability of these devices: there are neither moving parts nor wear and
tear in Soot Gone system.

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SG System consists of a Flame Front Generator (FFG), Conduit Pipes and Pulse
Generators.
The basic components of FFG are illustrated in Fig.1:

Figure 1

1. FFG Block 1 Gas Air Mixture Skid

2. FFG Block 2 Ignition Box with transformer (the input voltage 220 V) and
Ignition Chamber with the following manifold
(Such FFG commonly used as an Ignitor of the Flares in the
Oil Refinery Industry)
Note: One FFG with manifold can serve numerous Pulse Generators one by
one alternately.

Conduit Pipes 2” Connection pipes between FFG and Pulse Generators

Pulse Generators Detonation Soot Blowers

Leon Pulse invented the Pulse Generator based on Detonation Theory and
Ranque Hilsch Vortex Tube Effect.

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The special turbulence blades with accurately designed angles installed inside
Pulse Generators make it possible to provide Pulse Waves out of small
volumes. Due to these special blades the volume of Pulse Generator can be
extremely small.
Prepared in FFG air-gas mixture is supplied to Pulse Generator via the Conduit
Pipe. Flame Front sent from FFG compresses the unburned mixture and ignites it
in Pulse Generator. Pulse Generator produces pulse waves that propagate
into the boiler.

The approximate mass of Pulse Wave exhausted by Pulse Generator is 0,08 Kg.
The velocity is 4÷5 Mach (1.300-1.400 m¹/sec). (Compared to Steam Soot
Blowers the velocity is about 25 m¹/sec, and with Air Soot Blowers, the velocity
is less than 200 m¹/sec.)
The pulse wave with tremendous velocity and high temperature spreads its
power on the heat transfer surfaces of the boiler that causes different
sedimentations (ash, soot or slag) to fall or fly off.

Thanks to great velocities, pulse wave penetrates deeply through the entire
tube bundle assembly, whereas steam soot blowing technology is restricted to
line-of-sight cleaning.

Formed by pulse wave

vortexes remove the foiling
of each tube in the bundle
circumferentially.

Hot gases of low mass and

high velocity produced by
the pulse wave is the
solution to effective cleaning
on the one hand and the
safety of the cleaning
equipment on the other.

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The aforesaid description of Pulse Generators explains its unique features:

• Super High Effectiveness. After the replacement of different types of soot

cleaning devices for Soot Gone installation the flue gas temperature in the
stack decreased from 30 °C up to 120°C.
• Soot Gone System can clean not only fly ash but also hard builds up as well.
For example:
• Waste-to-Energy plant Ecosol-Veolia in Israel used to outage the plant and
clean the boiler and quencher from hard sedimentations once per month.
After the Soot Gone™ had been installed, the equipment remained clean
even after half a year of exploitation and there was no need for outages any
more.
• Safety of the operating personnel and reliability of the equipment.
• No erosion, corrosion or other undesirable effects for boilers (compared to
water lances, steam soot blowers or shot dropping). Absolutely harmless to
boiler structure or tubes.
• Small footprint. This feature gives an opportunity of easy installation even in
places of difficult access.
• Minimal maintenance expenses (The average annual cost for the system
comprised of FFG and ten Pulse Generators is approximately € 200.)
No need for any spare parts.

• Low capital, installation and operation cost (operation cost is approximately

€ 0,02 ÷ 0,06 per blow or about 70 pulse blows per one kilogram of LPG).

• Universal and adoptable for different areas and components of a boiler.

Soot Gone is designed to provide power waves fully automatically.

Soot Gone System is very user-friendly and can be easily used in both modes:
manual or full automatic mode, operated from a control board.

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Operation procedure

Figure 2
The SG operation procedure is comprised of the following steps: (see Fig 2)

1. Open valve (1) on manifold.

2. Open valve (6) Air Supply (normally instrumentation air about 4 Bar)
3. Open valve (5) Gas Supply (LPG of one Bar)
Note: SG can work on Natural Gas or LPG (Propane Butane) as well.

4. Fill Pulse Generator (7) via the Conduit Pipe 2" with gas-air mixture at designed
ratio. Normally the filling takes about 10 seconds. The amount of filling time is
determined during start up (to be adjusted during commissioning).
5. Ignite the mixture in Ignition Chamber (12) by pushing the button installed in
Ignition Box (11). The ignition plug installed in Ignition Chamber (12) ignites
the mixture and creates Flame Front (deflagration wave).
6. Flame Front propagates via the Conduit Pipe to Pulse Generator (7)
compresses and ignites the air-gas mixture in Pulse Generator.

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7. Pulse Generator (7) creates pulse wave. The pulse wave propagates inside the
boiler.
8. The kinetic energy of the pulse wave cleans the heat transfer surfaces in the boiler.
9. Important: to provide the cleaning through the other Pulse Generator (8) you need to
open only valve (2) and close valve (1) on manifold. Fill Pulse Generator (8) via the
Conduit Pipe.
10. After filling the Pulse Generator (8) with a air-gas mixture press the button of
Ignition Box (11) and ignite the mixture in Ignition Chamber (12). Flame Front
propagates via Conduit Pipe 2" and ignites the air-gas mixture in Pulse Generator (8).
Pulse wave produced by Pulse Generator (8) will clean another part of the boiler.

11. To produce power waves by another Pulse Generator you need to use the
manifold valves only. Fill any next Pulse Generator via corresponding Conduit
Pipe with air-gas mixture, ignite in the mixure in Ignition Chamber (12) and
Flame Front will propagate from FFG via the same pipe to this corresponding
Pulse Generator, thus creating cleaning pulse wave.
12. After finishing the cleaning procedure close valves (5), (6) and
other corresponding valves.

Typical installation of Soot Gone in Incinerator or Oil Refinery Heater

Written by Leonid Lushkevich

Heat Power Engineer

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