V-tex technology was first employed in the nuclear industry to scrub both gaseous and particulate contamination while minimising the risk of fouling of scrubber internals and spray nozzle blockage. Using the V-tex technology reduced the requirement for hazardous maintenance activity.

With the partial privatisation for the UK Nuclear industry in the 1990s this unique patented technology became available for all applications.

Over the last 15 years the technology has been developed and improved and today there are more than 400 V-tex scrubbers and strippers in successful operation across a broad range of process industries and leading global companies.  

V-tex technology is available from ERG and its global network of licensees.

We also have a number of V-tex pilot plants, which are available to be installed at customer sites for pilot trials, to prove the V-tex technology for customer specific applications.

Whether the requirement is for cleaning tars from biogases generated from a hot gasification process, or sulphurous compounds or VOCs from biofuels generated from an anerobic digestion process, V-texTM can be the solution.

• Gasification of waste bio-materials (eg, wood chips) produces a hot fuel gas that is cooled and cleaned and then fed into an engine driving a power generator. As the gas is cooled the tars present begin to condense (usually 90-120°C) forming viscous sticky liquids that cause fouling.  V-tex offers the power plant engineer a self-cleaning, high-efficiency, compact heat-exchanger that will remove all condensibles ahead of his blower or compressor.
• Biofuel gases can be produced from sewage works, landfill sites and by the anaerobic digestion of organic waste materials. These gases are cool so contain fewer condensibles. Instead, they contain other compounds that can foul blowers, compressors or engines including sulphurous compounds (eg. H2S, mercaptans) or VOCs (eg. styrenes, xylenes). Once again, the power plant engineer needs a self-cleaning, high-efficiency, compact reactor that will remove these compounds from the fuel gas. V-tex can remove any of these by careful selection of scrubbing-liquor.

The diagrams  below explain the operation of the V-tex technology.

The V-tex offers robust operation, using even dirty and solid-laden liquor streams, making it the scrubber of choice for arduous applications and where high availability, low maintenance operation is essential.

• High availability and minimal clean-out costs as no internals to foul
• Consistent, predictable mass- and heat-transfer rates provided by self-cleaning, non-clogging nozzle
• Low installation costs, especially when retrofitting into existing buildings, because of low height
• Smaller volumes of spent liquor to be sent to waste as V-tex can scrub with viscous liquors and slurries
• High efficiency performance irrespective of gas flowrate means no narrow window of operation limiting your production cycles
• Proven in a wide range of applications

• Opposed jet nozzle in centre of chamber
• Fine droplet spray pattern for high mass transfer
• Induced swirl from tangential gas inlet and central gas outlet
• Integral sump separated by lower chamber plate
• Droplet elimination by spray plate

V-tex technology is widely used for challenging environments such as:

• Difficult scrubbing applications often with recovery and/or manufacture of saleable bi-product
• Stripping of contamination from liquor/slurries and recovery
• Condensing particularly when the gas/steam has suspended particulate

For applications where the scrubber height is important, such as pharmaceutical and microelectronics production, the V-tex is able to fit on a single storey.   The diagram shows an example of a packed tower and V-tex scrubber both sized for 1,000 m3/hr and 99.5% removal of HCl.