Chemical Cleaning and Bin Whipping
BLOG CHEMICAL CLEANING BIN WHIPPING

Here at Thompson Industrial Services, we love being able to share success stories with our blog and social media audience. We recently received some great feedback from two of our clients, who were surprised at the level of knowledge and skill that our teams brought to their projects.

With both of these jobs, our technicians distinguished themselves in comparison with competing service providers that the clients had worked with in the past. That kind of distinction regularly encourages new clients to hire us for additional jobs, and we hope that reading about it encourages you to give our chemical cleaning and hydroblasting teams a try as well.

Chemical Cleaning an Acid Tank 

Most people will never have occasion to come into contact with a tank full of sulfuric acid. That’s a good thing, since this substance is extremely hazardous to humans and most other things that it comes in contact with. Even with a tank that is specially designed to hold sulfuric acid, you have to be very careful about how you work with the acid leading up to a cleaning; handling it the wrong way can blister the interior walls of the tank and cause serious damage.

Our chemical cleaning technicians understand these details and how to accomplish an acid tank cleaning safely, quickly, and affordably. 

A client of ours in Kentucky hired our chemical cleaning division to neutralize a sulfuric acid tank at their facility in preparation for a regular inspection. The inspector had to be able to physically enter the tank, and obviously our team needed to remove all the hazardous acid before that could safely happen.

Using our high volume pumps and 3D tooling, we neutralized and desludged the acid tank in less time than it had taken other contractors who had worked on the same equipment in the past. At the same time, we generated less waste, saving the client money overall on the job.

The client wrote to Thompson Industrial Services to let us know that he was “very impressed” with the work of our chemical cleaning team, and he looks forward to working with them on future projects. 

What is Bin Whipping?

While the term “bin whipping” is unfamiliar to most people, and probably triggers a snicker or two the first time you hear it, it becomes more intriguing the more you learn about it. This service applies to very large storage vessels, tanks, silos, hoppers, and other units that hold various substances.

These vessels occasionally need to be cleaned, a process which has traditionally involved lowering a technician into the vessel with manual cleaning tools. Fortunately, today there is an alternative that replaces human activity with technology to increase the speed, safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of the process. That technology is bin whipping.

As an example of the benefits of this approach, here is a brief synopsis of a project that we recently handled at a cement plant. This plant needed us to clean two silos, and by the time we had planned the job, brought in the bin whipping equipment, and executed the cleaning, the client had two comments in response. You might think they sound familiar after reading the chemical cleaning account above!

First, our bin whipping strategy got the silos more clean than they had been after cleanings accomplished by competing service providers. Second, we completed the job in less time. For this plant and for the cement industry in general, time is an incredibly valuable commodity. Shortening the cleaning project by at least 20 percent was a significant benefit for the client, and made quite an impression.

 In fact, this client is in the process of having us work on several more silos, a project that will have a larger scope than the first one we handled for them. We are confident that our bin whipping equipment and professionals are up to the task and will finish this project with flying colors as well!

Thompson Industrial Services 

Chemical cleaning and bin whipping (which uses only compressed air to remove debris) are two very different services, but Thompson Industrial Services provides both with the same levels of expertise and safety-conscious efficiency. We would value the opportunity to introduce you to these and our many other industrial cleaning services today!