Steel plant hoppers fail differently from cement silos. The material is hotter, heavier and far more abrasive, the vessels are smaller and more numerous, and the consequence of a blockage is immediate — a starved feed to a furnace that cannot simply be paused.
The scheduling problem. Steel plants rarely get a long clean shutdown. Most of this work happens in a short window against a running plant, which is why clearing from outside the vessel matters so much here — there is no time for permits, gas testing and a rescue standby team on a four-hour outage.
Cardox CO2 does most of the work in steel. Hoppers are smaller and blockages are localised at the cone and outlet, which suits a tube fired through a wall socket far better than a boom lowered from above. The blockage breaks in milliseconds and the material moves.
Whipping where the vessel is large enough — bunkers and larger bins get the boom and whipsets for wall build-up.
It works at temperature. Nothing has to cool down first, which is the difference between a job that fits your window and one that does not.
We also carry out blast furnace applications and uptake pipe cleaning. For rock and refractory breaking on the same sites, see non-explosive CO2 breaking.
Send the vessel size, the material and how long it has been a problem. We will come back with an approach, a duration and a price.
Plant already down? Mark your message EMERGENCY — we mobilise.