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By liquid
Applications
The liquid in the tank decides the sheath material and the watt density. Those two numbers decide whether the heater lasts years or weeks.
| Application | Typical liquids | Usual sheath materials | W/in² range | The governing problem |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chemical tanks | Caustic, alkaline, solvent, brine, process baths | Nickel / Monel, 316 SS, titanium, PTFE-coated | 20 – 45 | Material selection against real concentration |
| Plating & anodizing | Nickel, zinc, copper, chrome, anodize, phosphate | PTFE-coated, titanium | 20 – 40 | Temperature tolerance and sludge accumulation |
| Acid & pickling | Sulfuric, hydrochloric, nitric, chromic, HF | PTFE-coated, quartz, titanium | 20 – 35 | Oxidizing versus reducing acid |
| Oil & viscous fluids | Fuel oil, lube oil, asphalt, wax, thermal fluid | Carbon steel, 316 SS | 5 – 25 | Watt density and film temperature, not corrosion |
| Water & rinse tanks | Process water, rinse, washers, glycol, DI | 316 SS, Incoloy 800, titanium | 30 – 90 | Hardness, chlorides and deionized water |
The pattern across all five
Every one of these applications comes down to the same three questions in a different order.
What can the liquid do to metal? That is the sheath material question, and it is sensitive to concentration and temperature, not just to which chemical it is.
How well does the liquid carry heat away from a hot surface? That is watt density. Water is excellent at it, heavy oil is poor, and the difference is a factor of ten in allowable W/in².
What is going to insulate the element in service? Scale in hard water, sludge in a plating tank, iron in a pickle line, coke in hot oil. All of them do the same thing: raise the sheath temperature until the element fails.
Send the liquid, not the part number
A replacement request that starts with a part number often reproduces the failure. If an element lasted eight months in what should be a five-year service, the specification was wrong and an identical replacement will fail again on roughly the same schedule.
What is useful: the liquid and its concentration, the operating temperature, roughly how long the last element lasted, and what the failed element looked like when it came out. Corrosion pitting, uniform scale, a burned band in one place and a black carbonized coating all point at different causes — see why heaters fail.
Tell us what is in the tank
Including concentration, temperature and anything that settles out. That is what decides the specification.