Wepuko Pahnke GmbH

Handling the pressure

Offering its customers tried and tested technology, combined with innovative solutions in the fields of water hydraulics, oil hydraulics, process technology and press drives, as well as forging presses, Wepuko Pahnke is recognised as the market leader in the manufacture of sophisticated high pressure pumps.

Founded in 1932, the company remains a healthy and successful business having survived the years of European economic uncertainty and posting a turnover for 2010 of over 20 million euros. These results provide first hand evidence of the quality of its products, services and employees. In the years between 1996 and 2000 the company underwent a change of ownership and in the near 12 years since Michael Pahnke became sole managing director it has undergone a complete restructuring process. This work has allowed Wepuko Pahnke to establish a network of sales representatives in more than 70 countries.

At the heart of its customers systems one will find the Wepuko pump. Manufacturing horizontal triplex plunger pumps in various different sizes, these pumps can be used for almost any medium. Designed to operate under high working pressures, these units are robust and easy to maintain. Before the manufacturing process itself commences the special materials for the fluid end and the design of the plunger seals are determined based on the specific pumping medium. If necessary the fluid end can be equipped with cooling, heating or flushing, while the drive parts are supplied with oil by a forced or scrapper lubrication system that is integrated within the pump unit.

Committed to taking on new challenges, the company continues to increase its work efficiency in order to be more competitive and flexible in the years ahead. Due to the hard work of its worldwide representatives Wepuko Pahnke remains able to provide a series of innovative and flexible fluid solutions. One client to benefit from such work in recent years is Gaz de France, which commissioned the company to provide it with a series of pumps for gas dehydration These pump units are for delivery of cold or hot glycol in a gas dehydration plant. The percentage of dissolved water in natural gas from deposits is relatively high and its humidity makes the overall calorific value low. To dehumidify the gas, dry and hot glycol is distributed into the passing gas, with the dry glycol absorbing the humidity of the gas. Following this process the glycol is then collected and regenerated through thermal treatment.

Wepuko pumps are commonly used in the further treatment of oil deposits from refineries, a technique that is gradually gaining greater importance throughout the industry. Oil deposits and heavy oils, which are often heavily contaminated with sulphur and heavy metals, have in the past been deposited and partly utilised as asphalt for road construction. The storing of these deposits, which cannot be processed with traditional refinery technology, is on one hand very costly, due to the fact that they can be stored simply as hazardous waste, and at the same time too high-valency for such an ultimate waste disposal. For these very reasons, new processes to utilise these substances have been searched for extensively.

One possible profitable approach is to utilise their gasification, with the resulting synthesis being a highly valuable feedstock for many chemical processes and increasingly serving as fuel for gas turbines in power plants. Both of these applications are often combined in what are referred to as integrated plants, which themselves are linked to a refinery. This process makes an important contribution to the handling of feedstock and in turn boost overall environmental protection. Various processes have been developed to utilise gasification and what all these have in common is the partial oxidation in a reactor.

The deposits are transported into the reactor through high-pressure plunger pumps, experiencing pressures of up to 400 bar and temperatures reaching 400 degrees centigrade. This unique combination of high pressure, temperature and high-solid fluids requires a very specific pump design to meet uncommonly high material and technical demands. It just so happens that Wepuko pumps are more than capable of dealing with this kind of application.

Wherever its customers operate, be it in the petrochemical, gas, steel or food processing industries, every single one receives the same high value standards of quality. Whatever the task, Wepuko Pahnke is able to come up with just the right solution for each individual client. This is something the company has been doing for nearly 80 years and continues to successfully do to this day.

Wepuko Pahnke GmbH
Products: High pressure pumps