Heating & Cooling
Immersion Coils Metal Pickling & Finishing
APEX Engineered Products is a leading manufacturer of corrosion resistant heat transfer and process equipment solutions. Our specialty is in fabricating equipment using REACTIVE METAL and NICKEL ALLOY material.
APEX boasts one of the most diverse product lines of any heat transfer company, including shell and tube, immersion coils, process tanks, skid systems, and many other types of custom fabricated equipment. APEX has a complete staff of engineers from various engineering disciplines.
Horizontal Grid Coil
Serpentine Coil
Helical Coil
Electroplating / Metal Finishing
APEX has supplied a full range of metals for heating and cooling requirements in the electroplating and metal finishing industries:
- Stainless Steel for rinse/cleaning baths
- Titanium for the aggressive environments in Nickel and Copper plating.
- Niobium (Columbium) or Nickel Based Alloys into plating tanks with small amounts of Hydrofluoric Acid.
Sulfuric Acid Pickling
Zirconium has become the workhorse in the sulfuric acid industry for many reasons. It has replaced PTFE Immersion coils due to the following:
- High Heat Transfer Rate
- Reduced Downtime due to equipment failure
- Reduced maintenance cost
- Can use higher steam pressure to reduce surface area
- Full welded metal design eliminates leakage into condensate line
- Zirconium is nearly inert to Sulfuric Acid up to 70% and boiling temperature.
Hydrochloric Acid Pickling
For decades Tantalum and Niobium have been used in heating of hydrochloric acid pickling tanks. Both metals have a high heat transfer rate and superior corrosion resistant properties
- Niobium can be used in tanks with low (up to 10%) concentrated HCL
- Tantalum is used in the most aggressive corrosion environments
- Tantalum is totally inert to HCL pickling solution at 200F
Horizontal Grid Coil
Serpentine Coil
Helical Coil
APEX manufactures a wide variety of heating and cooling coils for the Chemical and Metal Finishing Industries. Our coils are designed specifically for high corrosive environments. Our heating coils are used all around the world in applications such as: HCl Pickling, Sulfuric Acid Pickling, Galvanizing, Plating, and Anodizing!
Metal immersion coils provide the corrosion resistance and mechanical toughness to withstand demanding industrial heating applications as detailed below. APEX EP has the ability fabricate and design panel, serpentine, grid, or helical coil type steam heaters from a variety of high alloy non-ferrous materials. The long-lasting performance and the ability for APEX EP to easily repair these coils make them the preferable means for heating solutions of corrosive media.
Recent Coil Fabrications:
Apex Engineered Products delivered the third in the series of Alloy 625 (Nickel-Based) coils for aerospace applications. All units
Apex Palmetto Division delivered a set of Zirconium and Titanium immersion coils for a leading steel pickling and plating
You have probably heard about our prowess fabricating exclusive, elite vessels for a wide range of processes, but did
Steel Pickling Immersion Coils:
During the past 25 years the steel picking/passivation industry has evolved to incorporate Tantalum immersion heaters as well as Tantalum Shell and Tube heat exchangers to heat these aggressive acid solutions.
Deep pickling baths utilize primarily immersion heater while the shallower & high turbulence pickling and passivation utilize Tantalum shell and tube heat exchangers and a pump around loop for heating these acidic solutions. Either method require a metal that has long term corrosion and mechanical toughness that provides the necessary reliability for this demanding application.
Tantalum metallic heat exchanger has almost entirely displaced Graphite, PTFE, Ceramic, and direct steam sparging for the majority of steel pickling or immersion coils / panels or pump around shell and tube steam heating.
Metal Finishing Immersion Coils:
Titanium and Niobium are key Anodes for the Electroplating or Metal Finishing industries; however Titanium, Zirconium, Niobium, as well as Tantalum are used as immersion heater coils used to heat the plating solutions as well.
The immersion coils produced by APEX EP are primarily used to liberate heat from a steam plant to the acidic plating solutions without diluting the solutions with steam condensate.
Non-Ferrous Metal Refining ‘Electrowinning’ Immersion Coils:
Electrowinning is the most common process used to extract pure non-ferrous metals from ore concentrates. Ni, Cu, Co, Au, Zn, Pb and Al are just some of the commercial non-ferrous metals that are electrowon to refine to their pure metallic state. APEX EP has been instrumental in providing Ti-2 immersion coils that utilize steam to heat the electrolyte solutions for most efficiently refining non-metallic metals that utilize these Electrowinning processes.
The photo above shows a batch of our recently fabricated Ti-2 coils ready for shipment to one of our key non-ferrous customers.
Coil Information Request Form
Please briefly describe your coil & application requirements to help us route your message to the appropriate department, or alternatively, please call 724-962-8717. We will respond within 24 hours.
