Leakproof Valve
Valves often develop leaks as they age. This is disruptive, wasteful, and can cause damage in residential settings, but can be far more problematic in industrial applications such as petrochemical, hydrogen, and semiconductor plants. Leaking valves can cause fires, explosions, environmental hazards, and safety hazards. The leak-proof valve is welded shut and actuated magnetically. There is no potential path for liquids or gasses to propagate out of the valve housing. Furthermore, by using multiple instances of this valve in a network, any arbitrary level of system reliability such as six sigma can be achieved.
The valve is unique in that it can withstand high temperatures, including welding the bonnet shut and welding or soldering the pipes connecting to the valve if so desired. No previous magnetic valve could achieve this performance, and there are now six U.S. and 13 international patents on this technology.
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Transcript
00:00:00 last but not the least the final category finalist for sustainable technology is the leak proof wolve and here is on stage Dr Ned Davis thanks everyone and um Caitlyn if you're still game for driving uh awesome thank you so much so um I'm Ned Davis and I've invented a valve that never leaks um this is perfect for a number of applications that I'll talk about
00:00:27 including hydrogen which is um pretty timely these days Caitlyn next slide okay so all traditional valves leak a little bit that's simply a fact uh many valves start leaking more as as as they age as as they get old um things get untrained in them um there's corrosion um I think one thing I should say and there's a picture of a very very old valve on on the on the left there but
00:00:54 even with a new valve with a new carbon fiber reinforced um super duper low emission packing the valve manufacturer and for that matter the end user doesn't really control how this valve is shipped if it goes across the ocean and an ISO container on the side that perfectly circular high-tech packing ends up as as an ellipse when it when it arrives so
00:01:15 brand new valve being installed in the refinery in the mid East may have a leaking packing uh right away and if it doesn't it starts to leak some over time um this this is these leaks add up it's it's about the equivalent of 72 million uh tons of CO2 in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and what this is called in the industry is it's called fugitive emissions it's emissions that aren't
00:01:43 going through the Smoke Stack they can't be flared um a scrubber won't do any good that they're dispersed across the the the plant the EPA at this point is driving sniffers around the um perimeters of um of refineries and and chemical processing plants to look for these emissions drif in um drifting in the wind so it is a very very uh big deal at this point and in certain other
00:02:06 industry well for that matter in certain um uh refining processes like HF Ali leaks can can be uh can be fatal and certainly in other Industries like like um like semiconductors so Caitlyn if we can go to the next slide here this is probably the nearest competing technology to ours uh Billows valves used extensively for example in the nuclear industry um it's not perfect
00:02:30 and I I guess you know the subject matter expert uh that I know from Shell valve subject matter expert said Ned you know it isn't really if the Bellows valve is going to leak it's it's it's more a question of of when the Bellows are uh thin they they Flex like an accordion they fatigue over time they typically in any macroscale valve they'll have um they'll have a welded
00:02:52 seal where where the sheet metal comes together that has a leak spec initially gets worse over time they can fail catastrophically you know surprise the the the entire bows is gone and for a tiny molecule like hydrogen um well hydrogen goes through metal hydrogen goes through metal of of of my valve and causes some embrittlement too and U with a very very thin metal like like a bows
00:03:15 um that that process is kind of on steroids so uh you know the South Korean uh nuclear agency was looking into magnetic valves even back in 82 they wanted something better than than Bellows and the earliest patn I can find on magnetic valves go back to 1942 but no one really made it practical and and of course back in 1942 the magnets just weren't good enough but
00:03:37 we've done a little bit more than that okay uh Caitlyn next slide so that leads into that um our breakthrough is to make a magnetic circuit everyone who tried to do magnetic valves before uh tried to do magnets inside and outside the Bonnet of the valve and this makes a lot of sense especially if the magnets aren't too powerful it's the way pump couplings uh work so there are there are pool pump
00:04:00 pumps now that that rely on a magnetic comping pool waterer is cool though and you don't have to weld the the the valve shot um I worked on magnetic valves before before I came up with this invention and I did the exact same thing it's it's the logical thing to do but it ruled out all the really compelling applications for me I I was doing that project for the Navy but I couldn't do
00:04:20 anything in the reactor room because it couldn't take heat so now we've got something by by moving the magnets outside which is the the main Central patent we we have six patents on this Tech well six us pattern on this technology now 13 International but by moving the the magnets outside and using magnetic circuit I'll show you on on the next slide we can do high heat we we can
00:04:39 have the Bonnet welded shut we can have the ports welded shut on the valve there literally isn't anything to leak to the outside from the valve I'll show you a slide later once that's solved and that's primarily where the most Troublesome leaks tend to be but once that's solved I can give you any reliability on a valve system desired I don't really change the seat my
00:05:00 technology is to you know close the Bonnet of the valve but I can give you in a probabilistic manner any reliability on the valve system and that wasn't true with Bellows and that wasn't true with anyone who tried U magnetic valves before Caitlyn could we advance another so this is how how it works the magnets are outside I've got a prototype right here that that I'll uh hold up and
00:05:20 show it then and try not to derail the middle of the presentation with but it's a magnetic uh circuit and I'll talk a little bit more about how I came up with the with the entire idea but it's akin to what's done with um with grinding tables on machine tools or or Optics tables where you flip a switch uh and the the mount for the Optics locks down flip a switch and move it around
00:05:42 somewhere else this the magnets are are outside and there's a magnetically susceptible material inside so for example with a stainless valve it it would be you know 400 series stainless steel or ph4 that material can be um can be uh encompassed in in inside you know a 316 or a monel or a hasteloy or some other exotic alloy but it has to be present and for a root react tuated
00:06:08 valve would have to be asymmetric so um it has to have a preferred direction to complete the magnetic circuit and um in you know for a rotary valve to turn the valve for a linear valve to to to move the St uh stem in a linear uh Manner and I mentioned this led to a bunch of um bunch of patents for us and the most compelling op um you know applications of the valve which include the high
00:06:33 temperature ones like Steam and the Really um and the really tough chemicals next slide Caitlyn okay so I hinted at this already once there is no no longer a leak path to the outside the valves can be put in series and for that matter in series and in parallel in a network to give any reliability for that valve Network so the the individual seat of of one valve May degrade some over time or
00:06:59 leak but they're not all going to at once um couldn't do this with the bows valve or or for that matter the earlier Generation Um uh magnetic valves that still had to have uh had to have a seal at least for assembly you know static seal uh putting those valves in a network or a series would typically make the reliability worse not better so we can do uh we can do this too by solving
00:07:25 the Bonnet we can solve the the the seat also next slide Caitlyn okay so there are a lot of compelling uh applications for this and the these are some of the ones that we're getting the most interest uh from hydrogen service so hydrogen is a tiny tiny molecule very tough to contain it's also very green right when hydrogen Burns water is only emissions um so in terms of the um of
00:07:51 the the Smoke Stack at the power plant or something oh it's fantastic it's just water vapor coming out it's it's a you know a different um cup of tea down down on the floor if if it's a contained area hydrogen's explosive as as you know it's also a very potent greenhouse gas so leaking a bunch of hydrogen from around a a plant that's using it is contributing to the you know a
00:08:17 greenhouse gas problem maybe perhaps not subtracting from it as much as as we might have thought uh semiconductors again in the news lately with the chips act and and and such um going with space suits when that stuff leaks very very toxic uh chemicals uh fugitive emissions we've we've talked about at length and I I have a two-minute warning so I'm going to roll forward uh but in any case
00:08:41 petrochemical industry big deal um reduced maintenance and higher reliability of course are are very important too I think in the interest of time let me roll forward to to the next slide here we've received a bunch of patents a bunch of interest and then Corona shut down the world to to some extent here uh we're trying to rekindle it and I think that leads into what I'm
00:09:01 going to say on the next slide here Caitlyn um oh I I wanted to talk a little bit more I invented this actually way back for wave energy sort of like the laboratory Beaker and um um generating power out in the ocean and the machines kept leaking so I got rid of the packing there did it for Gears did it for valves wasn't compelling at the time and finally thought of the
00:09:23 optical tables and such Caitlyn next slide so we can eliminate valve leaks no one else can do let's go one more one more slide Kaitlyn thanks so I wanted to thank you this is a huge opportunity whether I win the grand prize or not the publicity can I I very much hope rekindle this um there are only two of us working on at this point it would move the needle for us dramatically and
00:09:48 already has and I appreciate your your your time and attention today and just so so very grateful to be here thank you very much like that during questions I'll show here's in fact I can down L here but watch your watch your fingers a little bit so what you got one hand all St seal and that's a magnetic actuator mag are a little B question
00:10:18 questions yeah just be careful your fingers that how small can you make this valve so we can go small and especially for uh for a hydrogen uh we we we fully intend to do so a lot of the hydrogen valves are quite small I would say that for a smaller uh uh valve um you have to want it really not to leak like a hydrogen valve for a very very large
00:10:43 petrochemical uh pipeline of a valve you know typically we wouldn't add very much in terms of cost at all a smaller valve you're talking more of a cap cost dat because typically the small valves are cheaper to give you an idea that mediumsized one that I I passed around and I'm worried I don't want anyone to hurt their fingers when that actuary goes back on that one was about
00:11:05 $115 as a stock valve and I've got about $20 worth of magnets on it on a very small valve I might only have a couple dollars worth of magnets on it but if the valve is only a couple dollars that's $ 100% cost addn on a big $115,000 you know pipeline valve I'll be down in the noise even even if I cost a few hundred dollars it's going to be in the details and noise at that
00:11:28 point any other questions you mentioned that you have zero external leaks what about the internal leaks so that's what I I was attempting to convey with the um with the network so I really didn't change the the the valve seat that's you know not that I won't have some aha moment with that sometime in the far future but
00:11:53 I really didn't change the the the seat the the bottom of the valve is is stock uh but with any other technology if you added more of the valves it would increase the probability of a stim leak dramatically in you know in excess of what you're gaining by um by uh you know reducing the probability of a seat Leak with this there are no stem links totally welded shut so we can build up a
00:12:19 network of valves for any reliability that's needed if it has to be Six Sigma we put X number of valves and we get Six Sigma on the leaks through the seat okay okay a thank you very much all right