The right chemistry

The high energy demand of the chemical park is covered by the production of electricity and steam in eco-friendly combined heat and power generation. Two gas and steam turbines and one coal-fired power plant are operated to this end. The site also has its own hazardous waste incineration plant (for residues from production). Its crane system needed renewal. The challenge: the new system had to fit seamlessly into the existing building.

Scheffer Krantechnik GmbH has been a certified partner of STAHL CraneSystems for five years, and cooperation with the company has always worked smoothly even in the case of custom solutions and erection under difficult conditions. Marl Chemical Park has been a customer of STAHL CraneSystems for decades. Since the early 1970s, the site has been working with explosion-proof versions of crane technology from Künzelsau; the predecessor crane in the hazardous waste incineration plant was also manufactured by STAHL CraneSystems and always did its duty reliably from October 1996 until its current replacement now.

The new crane has been in operation since April 2019: the double girder overhead travelling crane with a load capacity of 6.3 t and a span of 14 m is designed for gripper operation and has walkways along the crane bridge, including a fully walk-on double-rail travel carriage. An SHW8 winch is used as rail travel carriage. A newly installed WCS position encoder of the latest generation along the crane runway and crane bridge is used for exact position detection for the site PLC.

All power, control and data lines of the external control system were also renewed via an elaborate festoon cable system. With its own fundamental research and development, STAHL CraneSystems has built up a wealth of experience that gives it a significant lead over competitors and protects against injury to people, damage to property and harm to the environment.

Kai Faber from Evonik Industries is looking forward to further joint projects: “We expect upgrades in the next few years particularly in the case of our existing plants, some of which are already 40 years old. We have worked gladly with STAHL CraneSystems because their technology works reliably over many years and guarantees us the safety we need here at Marl Chemical Park.”