A power plant located in Xi'an, Shaanxi, has coal-fired units that produce large amounts of fly ash during daily operation. To improve the efficiency of comprehensive utilization of ash and slag, the plant needs to transport fly ash from the ash storage to downstream building materials enterprises. The original transportation method relied on truck exports, which faced issues such as dust pollution, road losses, and high transportation costs. After multiple comparisons, the plant ultimately adopted the negative pressure pneumatic conveying system provided by Head Powder, achieving sealed, continuous, and automated pipeline delivery of fly ash.

Customer pain points

Before the project was implemented, the plant faced multiple challenges: first, severe fly ash emissions during traditional truck transportation caused dust pollution in the plant area and surrounding environment, posing significant pressure to meet environmental protection standards; Second, the transportation distance is about 3.5 kilometers, with frequent truck trips, leading to increased wear and tear on the plant's internal roads. During morning and evening peak hours, vehicles inside the plant also intertwine, posing safety hazards; third, the moisture content of fly ash fluctuates greatly, causing high-humidity materials to easily clump and clog in the conveyor pipeline, affecting continuity; fourth, manual scheduling and loading efficiency is low, unable to meet the 24-hour continuous material needs of downstream building materials enterprises.

Product advantages

To address these pain points, Head Powder has designed a modular negative pressure pneumatic conveying solution. The system uses a Roots vacuum pump as the power source, transporting fly ash directly from the bottom of the ash storage silo through sealed pipelines to the user's silo via negative pressure suction, with no dust leakage throughout the process. Automatic blockage clearing devices are installed along the pipeline, effectively handling minor clumping caused by high-humidity materials and ensuring stable conveying. The control system uses PLC and remote monitoring modules to achieve one-touch start/stop, fault warning, and multi-channel material splitting switching. The single-line conveying capacity reaches 50 tons per hour, meeting the continuous production needs of power plants. In addition, the pipeline layout makes full use of the existing overhead utility tunnels in the plant area, eliminating the need for additional land acquisition and shortening the construction period by 30% compared to traditional methods. After the system was put into operation, the cost of transporting fly ash from the power plant dropped by 40%, and on-site dust concentration dropped below 1.5mg/m³, successfully passing environmental inspection.