They are often overlooked but play a crucial role when it comes to sustainability: modern and complex sealing solutions. Digital technologies now enable remote  monitoring, helping to increase their service life and therefore reduce their ecological footprint.

The Lula oil field off the coast of Brazil is considered one of the largest oil discoveries in recent years. It was brought into production using FPSO (Floating Production Storage and Offloading) platforms. EagleBurgmann supplied the GE compressors at the Tupi 4 floating production site with new and innovative ultra-high-pressure DGS for CO₂-gas reinjection.

The new zero-emission mechanical seal from EagleBurgmann prevents the emission of the greenhouse gas methane during natural gas extraction, transport and processing.

Sealing the agitator shaft of a mobile vessel is a very special task when dealing with a process in vaccine production. Liquid lubricated seals offer the best conditions for this application. However, the operation of dry contacting seals is more convenient and just as reliable as it is safe.

Seals are a risk factor in the production of liquid crystals. If there is even the slightest contamination of the liquid crystals, this will later affect the image quality of the display. Read on to see which sealing solution Merck KGaA uses in paddle dryers for the production of liquid crystals.

A boiler circulation pump in a power plant conveys very hot and pressurized water. The pump has no cooling jacket, which increases the risk of a thermosiphon effect.

The new zero-emission mechanical seal from EagleBurgmann prevents the emission of the greenhouse gas methane during natural gas extraction, transport and processing.

The Etzel oil and gas cavern system is situated southwest of Wilhelmshaven, not far from the North Sea coast. A vast salt dome houses the more than 70 caverns which store crude oil and natural gas at depths between 900 and 1,700 meters. Etzel is integrated in the northwest European oil and gas pipeline network and makes a significant contribution to the safe and reliable supply of gas to Germany and all of Europe.

In a chemical plant in Japan, a pump is used to transport molten sulfur. Crystallized sulfur in the area of the shaft seal led to contamination and enormous maintenance costs. Since retrofitting to the EagleBurgmann SulfurAce mechanical seal the pump offers optimal availability. The working environment is clean and employees are secure from hazardous substances.

Our modern civilization is quite literally built upon cement. Today, building materials made from cement are used in buildings, roads, bridges, dams etc. Cement production is a heat-intensive process and causes thermal expansion in duct systems. To compensate this, Indian cement producer Ramco Cement needed fabric expansion joints with a diameter of several meters for two of their plants. On the basis of a close collaboration, EagleBurgmann was able to design components that increase the efficiency of the plant in the long run.

EagleBurgmann convinced the persons responsible for the liquor line in a pulp mill to equip the shaft of the pressure disk filter with a practical and reliable mechanical seal, thereby increasing the MTBR to an extraordinarily long period of three years.

Very few seals can effectively handle a large axial displacement and significant shaft deflection. One of these is SeccoLip with its proven and patented lip design that can reliably compensate for shaft deflection.

When media with hydrocarbons are pumped, seals in pumps can be exposed to high temperatures and wear caused by solids. The safety standards are high to protect the environment and personnel from leaking media. EagleBurgmann developed a robust solution with reliable safety properties for a refinery.

Hardly any other market is as dynamic as the water industry. Mega trends such as the increasing urbanization, demographic growth or climate change constantly present companies from the water sector with new challenges.

The 275 km OSVAT pipeline network carries about 55 % of the crude oil explored in Brazil. In 12 Sulzer heavy duty pumps, which maintain the fast flow of crude oil from the wells to the final destination, several wear-free mechanical seals with DiamondFace technology operate without failure and provide economic advantages for the owner.

The reliability of centrifugal compressors in gas grids are of the highest social and economic importance for network operators. Compressor performance and availability are closely related to the effectiveness of sophisticated compressor shaft sealing technology. Here, EagleBurgmann developed a new sealing concept which ensures better compressor availability: the coaxial separation seal CobaSeal.

The Sohar refinery was built with state of the art technology to process a mixed feedstock of crude oil and atmospheric residue. Within the scope of its TotalSealCare service, EagleBurgmann maintains an own service center to immediately cater to the needs of the customer.

The piston booster that an American compressor manufacturer had selected and qualified to include in its compressor package proved unreliable for supporting customer’s needs. These seal gas boosters led to maintenance issues with both the boosters and the dry gas seals. To deliver on their reliability claims, the OEM decided to include new, state-of-the-art technology in its offering.

The handling of latex is a major engineering challenge for the mechanical seals that are used on pumps and reactors. One of the German EagleBurgmann service centers collaborates with the operator of the Marl Chemical Park, and has been supplying it with individual sealing solutions for many years.

Extra-heavy crude oil, sand, produced water and gas are the "living conditions" for the seals in a multi-phase pump in Venezuela. EagleBurgmann developed a solution that proved to be extremely robust despite a multiphase fluid and considerably less flush fluid.

With a strategic alliance between EagleBurgmann and the Alliance Pipeline, which leads from British Columbia and North Dakota to Chicago, best practice methods for maintenance and availability were to be implemented. EagleBurgmann PDGS seals are installed in the pipeline's compressor stations.

Frequent starts and stops are a severe test for gas-lubricated compressor seals. Installed in an Argentinean combined cycle power plant is an EagleBurgmann supply system that provides a continuous gas flow rate for the seals and adapts it to changing conditions. Since then, the operational reliability of the compressors has increased significantly.

Reduce maintenance costs for seal supply systems and extend MTBR intervals - EagleBurgmann's task was to significantly improve the availability of unmanned pump stations in a gas pipeline in Texas with single seals for multifluid pumps.

An FSPO unit is equipped with power generation and waste heat recovery systems from different manufacturers. The correspondingly disparate expansion joints failed after a short time. EagleBurgmann supplied a low-maintenance solution that is now part of the standardized equipment of other FPSO units.

A mechanical seal was replaced at GRTgaz, which for the past year has prevented the process gas compressors leakage commonplace when running natural gas compressors. Other benefits: less maintenance and higher safety.

Special expansion joints from  EagleBurgmann compensate for these position changes and work reliably even under unfavorable conditions such as low temperatures, proximity to the sea and explosive environments. 

Upgrading oil-lubricated seals to seals with dry gas seal technology on centrifugal compressors offers attractive benefits for the operator: considerable cost savings, emission reduction and longer MTBM (Mean Time Between Maintenance). However, the technical realization is challenging and tricky.

The current geopolitical developments are leading to a massive strain on the global energy supply. Despite political efforts to transition to renewable energy, 80% of  the global energy consumption is still generated from fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and natural gas . Hence, a functioning and reliable infrastructure for the  transportation of primary energy sources is still of major importance. The main premises are maximizing the availability of oil and gas pipelines and minimizing their downtimes. For decades, EagleBurgmann has been a partner of the oil and gas industry and contributes to the reliability of the transportation process by providing innovative sealing solutions. With the introduction of a new smart technology for digital condition monitoring of seals, a further future-oriented step has been taken.

EagleBurgmann supports shipbuilders, shipping companies and conversion companies globally with metal expansion joints for the flexible attachment of the systems.

The Shell Rhineland refinery is the largest refinery in Germany. To significantly increase the service life of the mechanical seals that are in operation at the facility, a service contract with EagleBurgmann was signed.

By means  of custom-made PLUG & RUN expansion joints  with a more wear-resistant material, EagleBurgmann was able to provide a solution which ideally fulfills the requirements with regard to wear while at the same time significantly reducing the changeover time.

Whether it’s for more volume, for more sheen, for dyed hair or for a well-groomed beard – the choice of shampoos seems practically endless nowadays. Only few people ever think about what happens before their favorite product is placed on the supermarket shelf. The production of hair wash products can be a great challenge for cosmetics companies. A variety of raw materials with different physical and chemical properties has to be processed. Canan Kozmetik, a sub-brand of L’Oréal based in Istanbul, faced a long period of constant downtimes and high maintenance costs due to seal failures. A solution was found by experts from EagleBurgmann in the form of cartridge seals with the innovative DiamondFace® Technology.

Things get hot in rotary kilns, very hot in fact. In the production of cement, for example, the thermometer measures more than 1,000 degrees Celsius. Sealing systems from EagleBurgmann, a company of the Freudenberg Group and EKK, make sustainable contributions to environmental protection, energy efficiency and process reliability under these "fiery" high-temperature conditions.

Mechanical seals are not always the best choice. In roller dryers used in the production of pharmaceutical powder, abrupt shaft deflections during processing led to increased seal wear. Operation was maintenance-intensive and prone to faults.

When the process medium in the production of metformin may not be contaminated with sealing medium under any circumstances, gas-lubricated seals for agitator shafts are the first choice. The Norwegian company Vistin Pharma took a daring step away from oil-lubricated to nitrogen overlayed seals.

In Great Britain, a shortage in natural gas supply has severe consequences: Since the country switched from coal-fired to gas-fired power stations, a gas supply shortage makes households and industrial consumers not only vulnerable to failing heating and gas stoves, but also to power outages. Companies along the value and transportation chain of natural gas are therefore especially dependent on reliable equipment.

In the production of pharmaceutical excipients, where sealing fluids must be kept out of the production process and handling of the seal on the agitator shaft should be simple,it is worth switching to a dry-running sealing system.

Between June 2017 and March 2019 the Hengli Group constructed an integrated refining and chemical complex in the Chinese harbor town Dalian where 20 million tons of crude oil are processed every year. EagleBurgmann advised the company Hengli concerning the selection of mechanical seals and supply systems for the whole plant and supplied more than 95 % of the components in use. 

In Germany, crude oil production amounts to 3.7 million tons per year. EagleBurgmann and a leading pump manufacturer conducted a successful field test with SGR mechanical seals.

In a refinery, different systems are being used, among them multistage vertical can pumps to circulate highly flammable liquid hydrocarbons. EagleBurgmann Nova Magnetics provided several magnetic couplings to hermetically seal them.

A chemicals company in the Middle East uses the refrigerant R134A-Freon in the production of toluene diisocyanate (TDI). Shortly after the refrigeration plant is commissioned, the seal of a magnetic coupling pump fails. Quick help was called for.

The situation in a Swedish paper mill a few years ago was that there were 730 pumps in different designs with one hundred different seal types. EagleBurgmann used the concept of standardized seals as a convincing argument. The change has paid off for the packaging manufacturer in several respects.

Cruise liners have to reduce their sulfur emissions in Emission-Controlled Areas (ECAs). To accomplish this, light fuel oil is used in coastal regions - with significant consequences for the ship's fuel supply.

The chemical company Global Amines is one of the worldwide leading manufacturers of special chemicals. The "Southeast Bavarian Chemical Triangle", near Altötting, Germany is the location of the Gendorf plant. Global Amines produces preliminary, intermediate and finished chemical products here. EagleBurgmann successfully converted a chemical standard pump from a competitor's seal to an EagleBurgmann DF-M7N DiamondFace mechanical seal and achieved significantly increased pump and system availability.

Pharmaceutical manufacturers like the Bayer AG rely on mechanical seals in their manufacturing plants.

The TOTAL refinery Mitteldeutschland GmbH, located in Spergau near Leuna, is one of Europe's most modern refineries. To ensure optimal plant availability, a perennial service contract between EagleBurgmann and the refinery was signed.

Poor lubrication and sliding faces in hard-hard pairing - there are better conditions for the perfect functioning of a seal. EagleBurgmann nevertheless reliably seals the agitator of a fermenter for the production of biocultures for the long term.

In the area of services for packings and static seals for power plant technology, EagleBurgmann offers an efficient on-site seal service. At the nulcear power plant Unterweser in Germany, a TotalSealCare service team successfully conducted a planned inspection, and was also able to counteract an unexpected increase of the workload without any issues.

For the unmanned pump station of a Canadian oil pipeline, EagleBurgmann developed a single seal that can be used flexibly for several pump types and meets the highest safety requirements even up to 99 bar (1,440 PSI).

The standard agitator seals installed by the OEM proved to be unsuitable for yogurt production. The product being processed kept sticking, causing the dry-running seals to fail.

The Indian company Thermax supports operators in using resources more efficiently, thereby reducing costs and environmental impact. For example, Thermax manufactures heat recovery steam generators (HRSGs) that extract energy from turbine exhaust gases and increase turbine efficiency. Fabric expansion joints are crucial components in HRSGs and have to withstand temperatures of up to 600 °C. When selecting suppliers for an important export project at a petrochemical plant in Nigeria, Thermax did not want to take any risks – and went for tried and tested expansion joint solutions from EagleBurgmann.  

The Conoco Humber refinery in England processes up to 230,000 barrels crude oil per day. To ensure a trouble-free thermal cracking process, the refinery uses EagleBurgmann's dual metal bellow seals.

When problems are encountered with nitrogen supply in production, such as low or fluctuating pressure, it can be useful to switch to a lip seal.

Purified Terephthalic Acid (PTA) is particularly a preliminary product used in the polyester and PET production. It is generally produced from naphtha. EagleBurgmann supplied its largest agitator seal to a PTA facility in China, and since then has become a leading manufacturer for PTA production.

Water scarcity is one of the core issues of our time. As a leading global enterprise for the provision of efficient and sustainable water cycle technologies, Xylem is committed to fighting water shortages through innovative and resourceconserving solutions.

The supply of nitrogen for seals in compressors is particularly challenging in the Amazon region. The operator of a gas pipeline was looking for a low-maintenance yet reliable supply solution for two compressor stations in the middle of the Brazilian rainforest.

Constantly changing operating conditions place extreme demands on pump seals in the production of antibiotic active ingredients. DiamondFace technology significantly extends the life of seals and enables the reduction of stock costs through rationalization.

The TOTAL refinery at the Leuna chemicals site is one of the most state-of-the art facilities of its type in Europe. It processes around 30,000 tonnes of crude oil every day, most of which is pumped in from Russia.

In the highly sensitive production of vaccines, only a few barrier media and materials are approved for mechanical seals. If steam condensate is to lubricate silicon carbide sealing surfaces, premature wear is inevitable. How it actually does work is demonstrated by the case of an internationally operating pharmaceutical company.

Darlington Nuclear Generating Station in Canada provides about 20 % of Ontario's electricity needs. EagleBurgmann equipped 16 Sulzer pumps with a newly designed sealing system according to API plan 23.

The EagleBurgmann TotalSealCare service offers a flexible and modular package for every call-out situation and meets all local requirements. The "On-Site Service" module has successfully proven its worth over many years and in a number of different industrial fields.

In a nuclear power station, the requirements for mechanical seals are very high. EagleBurgmann successfully supplied a DiamondFace coated mechanical seal, type SAF(P)I for a boiler feed pump in a power plant in Southern Germany.

The global vaccination campaign against COVID-19 is steadily progressing. To ensure this, Merck relies on a long-standing and reliable cooperation with EagleBurgmann and trusts in their gas-lubricated agitator seals from the AGSZ series.

Barrier fluid for seals is a risk factor in the pharmaceutical industry as it could contaminate the active ingredients produced. A globally active company is playing it safe and replacing liquid lubricated mechanical seals in paddle-wheel dryers with dry-running mechanical seals.

TA-Luft and ATEX requirements make it necessary for operators to replace all seals used that are not conform to the standards. At Chema Prozess- and Systemtechnik in Germany, EagleBurgmann equipped steel distillation vessels with double mechanical seals in cartridge design that meet the needed legislations.

Reliability during sensible chemical reaction processes and a significantly increased lifetime characterize the agitator seal used in a chemical production plant. In stirred tank reactors of a polymer dispersion facility in Germany, various monomers and water are transformed into polymers. EagleBurgmann HSHLV-D agitator seals are used in these reactors to prevent standstills.

Every day, the world’s population grows by 200,000 people, and the same number migrates to the cities. According to the UN, there will be around ten billion people on  earth by 2050. To feed them, agriculture will have to produce about 50% more food in 2050 compared to 2012, according to the FAO.

Applications within the field of nuclear technology place special demands on the components used. Not only do they have to work reliably under normal operating  conditions, they also have to withstand the loads which can occur in the event of a serious incident.

In countries like Canada, South Korea and Argentina, CANDU reactors (“Canada deuterium uranium reactors”) use nuclear fuel to generate electric power. Unlike the  ressurized water reactors and boiling water reactors mainly used in Europe, CANDU reactors can be refueled during operation to increase availability.

For the export compressor in a gas processing plant, EagleBurgmann developed a sealing solution that is more than just reliable. Low nitrogen requirement and minimal methane leakage reduce operating costs by a five-figure amount.

A seal for a shaft diameter of 550 mm (21.65") – an absolutely thrilling dimension for EagleBurgmann. In close cooperation with the customer, we developed a durable and robust solution to help increase the overall efficiency of the pump in an Austrian reservoir power plant.

A major natural gas provider in North America was experiencing frequent dry gas seal failures on one of their pipeline compressors. This interrupted gas transportation, causing challenges to meet customer demands, along with unplanned and costly maintenance.

In a natural-gas processing plant in Australia, moisture and dirt directly infiltrated the compressor seal via the supply gas. The operating conditions could not be changed, but the seal certainly could.