Founded in 2016 in Helsinki, Finland and with offices in San Diego, California, Altum Technologies uses software-guided power ultrasound to remove fouling from industrial equipment with no need for production stoppages and equipment disassembly.

Altum's Zero Process Downtime (ZPD) Ultrasonic Technology consists of a proprietary software, central unit device and clamp on transducers. Altum’s software targets the ultrasound in an optimal way to remove the fouling from the industrial equipment and to prevent it from appearing again.

Typical ways to combat industrial fouling include chemical treatment, open the tubing and pressure wash, or simply replacing the equipment. A lot of times operators need to operate parallel equipment while cleaning in order to not lose production, but not with the Altum ZPD ultrasound technology.

Using the ZPD technology, operators can continue producing while the transducers are clamped on and the software uses this technology to make impedance matching to guide the ultrasonic technology and clean during real-time operations.

The company is well-funded with 14.1 M euros raised to date. They are active globally across different industries like energy, petrochemicals, paper manufacturing, food, beverage companies and more. There is also a CO2 reduction benefit as companies can see energy efficiency savings from proactively preventing fouling.

Short-term project, long-term projects, leasing, purchasing

• Altum’s high-power ZPD Ultrasonic technology combines traditional ultrasound cleaning with proprietary beamforming software to focus cleaning power exactly where it is needed, and thus effectively clean a pre-defined target point inside a structure.
• The uniqueness of the solution is that the power ZPD Ultrasound system can be attached externally to any existing production environment – without making changes to the production equipment or the process.
• The solution can be remotely monitored and controlled via the internet (IoT). It also employs cutting-edge scientific research in the fields of FEM/BEM modeling and artificial intelligence (AI).
• Altum has succeeded in bringing all this revolutionary technology together as ZPD Ultrasound and applying it to a practical situation for the first time in industrial cleaning and fouling prevention.

Fouling is one of the biggest contributors to climate change and global warming. Industrial operations globally are responsible for a total of about 30% of all CO2 emissions. Currently the main efforts to reduce CO2 emissions have been focused on transportation, which is responsible for about 17% of the total emissions. In developed countries the amount of CO2 generated is roughly the same between industry and transportation.

When looking at industrial CO2 release in more detail, one of the biggest causes is fouling in production processes. Fouling is often overlooked as a contributing source of emissions, due the fact that all industries have fouling and conventional wisdom says there is no way to prevent it. Until now.

To get a feeling for the enormous environmental impact this causes, consider this: Fouling in heat exchangers is responsible for a massive 2.5% of global CO2 emissions and until now it was thought that fouling is something that cannot be avoided. These emissions are equal to that caused by 200 million cars – and this could be avoided just by preventing fouling on the surfaces of heat exchangers.

The solution can be used to prevent fouling in:

• 1 in to 3 ft diameter pipes
• Valves
• Tubular Heat Exchangers
• Evaporator
• Plate and shell Heat Exchangers
• Reactors