JamesJ

The demand for new and advanced environmental technology has never been greater, especially in the pump hire sector. With little room for market growth, competition is won either by reducing hire rates to maintain utilisation in ageing and non-emission compliant hire fleets or innovating brand-new equipment and environmental solutions. DXB Pump & Power entered this established market in 2017, with the opening of a small manufacturing facility in Ipswich and today has expanded into a 12,000 sq ft facility capable of building up to forty pumpsets a month officially opened by Lord Deben, Chairman of the Climate Change Committee.  This business expansion has been supported by New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership, through the Growing Business Fund. Originally founded in a 2,000 sq ft shed on an old egg farm, DXB was set up by owners Simon Ruffles and Matt Flack with savings pulled together to get started. Ruffles designed and sold the pumpsets while Flack managed the supply chain and built the pumpsets in the shed.  After four fruitless months of looking for a new place to rent, the owners decided to purchase a new factory with 12,000 sq ft of production and office space that would enable them to design and install a factory capable of building up to forty pumpsets a month in the future. The company produced the first batch of Stage V pumpsets in the old factory whilst upgrading the new facility including new factory floors, insulating the entire building to reduce emissions and noise, new electrics including LED lighting to reduce emissions further and equipment for testing electric sets, whilst installing two new five tonne cranes and a new sound attenuated test bay capable of testing pumpsets inside all year round.  Managing Director, Simon Ruffles commented ‘”This would not have been possible without the support of the Local Enterprise Agency who have guided and supported us over the past few years”. Continuous product development to reduce emissions and costs of pumping remain at the heart of what DXB Pump does. But its focus expands well beyond that.  DXB has built a 10-person training room and now offer courses in using pumps efficiently and environmentally whilst servicing them to the highest standards. These are offered to customers in both the private and public organisations that have used older pumps and require training to optimise the use of modern pumpsets.  

DXB Pump & Power the UK’s leading environmental pump manufacturer has recently been approved and certified by the British Standards Institute to ISO9000, 14000 and 45000. The company, which is the only wholly British owned pump manufacturing company has, since its founding in 2017, developed a range of market leading Stage 5 and electric pumpsets for the UK and Europe that has seen it save its customers substantially on fuel costs CO2 and NOx emissions. Speaking from their new 13000sqft factory in Suffolk, Matt Flack- Director of Operations, said “Starting as a brand new facility in 2017 enabled us to use best practice methods in designing and manufacturing the cleanest pumpsets for our customers easily, but now having certified these processes with our ISO certifications, ensures that we continually produce high quality, environmental equipment for our most important market.” Sue Alsop who joined the company in 2022 as Director of QHSE, has worked hard to design and install their process systems to ensure that the company would not only achieve its ISO approvals but also more importantly, allow the business to design and develop the most advanced pumpsets on the global market consistently to the highest quality and environmental standards.

DXB PUMP, the UK’s only British owned specialist pump manufacturer with a complete range of Stage V and electric pumpsets, are expanding their range of dry prime dewatering and slurry pumpsets with the introduction of two new pumpsets at Hillhead Quarry Show.   At the very top of their Stage 5 range, the company is introducing the new GI700/160 which will not only become the most powerful of quarry dewatering pumps in their range, but also the most powerful of any UK pump manufacturer for dewatering and slurry pumping. Powered by a Scania Stage V DC16 engine which is supplying 500kw of continuous power at an economical 1800rpm, the company has designed two pumpsets for the deep quarries which have high levels of groundwater inflow and heavy rainfalls as seen in the west of the UK in Wales, England and Scotland. The GI700/160 offers quarries the highest performing 150mm (6 inch) dewatering pump offering maximum flows of over 700m3/hr and heads of over 175m at its maximum. However, the engineers at DXB have optimised the performance to offer between 600-700m3/hr at 16 bar allowing quarries to specify standard 200mm diameter PN16 hoses and not burn additional fuel overcoming excessive friction losses in the dewatering system reducing further, the carbon footprint of operating this pumpset on the quarry. By optimising the performance they are able to achieve these results running at 1800rpm one of the lowest points on the engine fuel burn curve which means the mines and quarries will have the best possible ratio of fuel consumed for total cubic meters of water pumped. The second model in this canopy the company has designed using this engine, is the higher flow GI1000/120 pumpset using the same canopy/engine combination but with a larger Cornell 12×10 pump end for those higher flow requirements seen in the wettest mines and quarries often struggling to do the application with a single pumpset from other companies. All the DXB7 pumpsets with this Scania engine configuration will be controlled by the in-house designed DXB control panel and telemetry systems allowing for the user or quarry manager to monitor and control the pumpset from their phones or desktop computer remotely as well as ensure the pumpset shuts down when not needed saving fuel and maintenance costs on the quarry or mine. In addition to the sophisticated control systems, DXB Pump has also included the Fuel ActiveTM fuel conditioning systems for ensuring only the best fuel reaches the engines. Designed and manufactured in the UK, the Fuel ActiveTM system has become increasingly popular on quarrying equipment in the UK for reducing downtime due to contaminated fuels.    At the other end of the product range, DXB has designed and is now manufacturing the new DE250/15e pumpset which is one of their smallest units for dewatering but now offered with premium efficiency electric motor rather than Stage 5 18.5kw Deutz engine. Designed on similar lines to its popular engine driven unit, the new pumpset keeps the same control panel and telemetry system but these now control a state of the art integrated variable speed drive motor complete with a simple 63A socket on the side of the pumpset allowing for swift and easy installation without an electrician. Built in the same canopy as the engine driven unit, the pumpset comes with the same features such as four wide doors for easy service, heavy duty Cornell pump with the Cycloseal seal protection system as well as the controls enabling operation and monitoring from a computer or phone on site. All the DXB Pumps are now manufactured in their new factory located in Suffolk with over 12,000 square feet of production space, testing facilities and offices. The company which was founded in 2017 by Simon Ruffles and Matt Flack, offers a complete range of pumps and solutions to the UK quarry markets and has grown to over twenty employees now and even has a sister company DXB Integrate based in Nottingham offering temporary hire solutions using the DXB pumps and accessories such as hose, pipework and training.

DXB Pump and Power, the UK’s only privately owned British pump manufacturing company, has launched a brand new dewatering and washplant feed-pump for quarries and recycling plants expanding its range of pumps originally launched at Hillhead last year. The new DE140/70 pumpset is a Stage 5 and electric motor driven pumpset designed and built in the company’s DXB3 canopy that is used in both 55kW and 105kW configuration and allows the company to offer a range of quarry pumps offering flows up to 850m3/h and heads to over 120m. This latest design for medium pressures offers a maximum flow in excess of 180m3/hr at heads of almost 80m with a BEP at 140m3/hr at 70m operating at an economical 50kW of power and 14.5 litres of fuel with only 37kg of CO2 each hour. The major benefits to the quarry of this pump is that where others use Ad-blue in the SCR exhaust systems to reduce their emissions, the DXB pump has only a DPF which is optimised to maintain the engine temperature and reduce the challenges faced by other larger engines in the market. In addition to the Deutz engine with its 1000 hour service schedules, the pumpset comes complete with the revolutionary Fuel-ActiveTM system that reduces the chances of fuel contamination and costly callouts on site whilst maintaining uptime of the plants that often run at 150 tonnes per hour. Simon Ruffles, Managing Director of DXB Pump and DXB Integrate, the hire company in the UK aggregates market, said Dave Rodgers, Director of UK Key Accounts, commented… “Many quarries operate their plant some distances away from the supply of their water requiring greater pressures to over the distance between this lagoon and the plant, but yet needs pressure for the nozzle bars and this pumpset is the smallest we manufacture for such applications” He continued “Being able to design the pumpset without Adblue for the exhaust systems is a big deal for smaller quarries that perhaps don’t have the larger equipment on site using Adblue for their units. Doing this performance with only a 55kW not only saves on servicing costs but also fuel which is critical to the smaller quarries in the UK.” VIEW DE140/70 PUMPSET NOTE: DXB Pump & Power is an ISO9000/14000/45000 approved pump manufacturing business based in Suffolk. Its owners have operated in the UK quarry industry for over twenty years and have worked with all the major quarry companies in the market but especially the independents. Their complete range of dewatering and process pumps include fresh water and slurry pumpsets in both engine and electric motor configuration and are capable of flows over 1000m3/hr and heads of over 240m while still passing solids over 75mm in size.

Based around both Stage 5 emission compliant engines and IEC4 premium efficiency electric motors, DXB Pump & Power have expanded their range of pumpsets specifically for the pump hire markets with the launch of the GI140/70 and DE200/100 pumpsets for the construction and general industrial markets such as petrochemical and oil & gas. Incorporating the market leading Cornell 3HC Redimprime pumps in both models, the GI140/70, is a lower powered general purpose pumpset capable of a maximum flow of 180m3/hr and maximum pressure of 8 bar operating at a very economical maximum 1750rpm from the Deutz TD2.9 55kw engine. With a six-inch (150mm) suction and  three inch (80mm) discharge, it fits directly into the highly demanded general purpose three inch pump market but with a substantial increase in performance of around 30% in flow and head of around 15% all at Best Efficiency Point (BEP) from only a 45kw Stage 5 engine or electric motor. David Sterling, Lead Design Engineer with DXB Pump commented… “The new compact GI140/70 was designed around a strict design remit that limited our overall size canopy to our DXB3 which has proved incredibly popular with the construction and equipment hire markets due to its quietness and low fuel burn design reducing emissions and pollution.” He continued “…by designing this pumpset to operate at a maximum speed of only 1750rpm, our design team have ensured that the pump operates in the most fuel efficient region below 1800rpm, minimising fuel consumption enabling the pumpset to have the lowest carbon and NOx output of any similar sized 80mm pumpset on the market.” VIEW GI140/70 PUMPSET The pumpset is built with the in-house designed DXB control panel and telemetry that enables the customers to optimise its operation on site but at the same time allow the organisations to closely monitor its safe use throughout any hire contract whilst on site regardless of location in the world. Matt Flack, a founder and now the Director of Operations at DXB Pump & Power commented… “Our new 1300m2 factory meant we could fast track the design and development of our two new 80mm pumpsets immediately after the launch of our hard iron pumpset and 560kw GI700/160 the largest high pressure pump now on the market.” He continued “Ensuring that the GI140/70 operated on the TD2.9 engine with less than 55kw meant we could use an engine with output characteristics that ensured smooth and reliable operation on site in temperatures of more than 40 degrees ambient without overheating or having DPF issues that would be seen with smaller canopies and DPF’s mounted on top of the engine in the canopy, a common problem we have seen in our research of the market.” The number of 80mm pumps are also expanded with the launch of the top of range DE200/110 pumpset from DXB Pump which combines the 6X3 pump from Cornell with the Deutz TCD3.6 105kw engine in the same canopy configuration whilst maintaining a high ambient capability through the use of its highly successful “HotBox” canopy design. In the design, DXB have mounted not only all the exhaust aftertreatment technology in a separate canopy section, the company has also ensured that the standard fit, spark arrestor is mounted in the same region as well, removing all the hot exhaust components from the inside of the canopy completely. This design enables even the 105kw unit to have the highest ambient temperature capability in excess of 40 degrees whilst allowing the EAT components to rise to 600o Celsius during the regeneration process as part of its standard 500 hour service. With features such as the telemetry, air-shutdown valves, ATEX spark arrestors and ActiveFuelTM filtration systems fitted as standard on all DXB Pumps, the company has squarely targeted the premium end of the 80mm pump market with its products where downtime and lost hire revenue is considered more important than initial purchase price or lower rental rates, much like the very successful SS300/70 hard iron pumpset which was launched earlier this year and has now seen over thirty pumpsets sold into the UK and European markets alone for the geotechnical customers now using this pumpset.  Dave Rodgers, Director of Key Accounts for the DXB Integrate, sister hire company of DXB Pump commented… “The SS300/70 pumpset has been an outstanding success for our own hire business as well as our partners since its launch at Hillhead this year where we even took sales orders on the stand.” He continued “Combining the Deutz 3.6 engine with a wear-resistant pump meant that customers in the Geotechnical hire markets such as drillers and piling companies can now rent a pumpset capable of over 60l/sec flow rates at 6 bar and have zero wear on the pump that other hire companies have to charge damages for at the end of the contract. The customers used to have to pay an end-of-contract damages invoice for wear that often amounted to thousands of pounds additional costs because the other three inch pumps were built in ductile-iron that wore excessively in only weeks on piling applications such as those seen on HS2 or Thames Tideway, with the launch of both high pressure and wear resistant pumpsets, customers can now clearly choose the correct pump for the application without fear of hidden costs on top of our great hire rates.” DXB Pump & Power operate from their brand-new factory in Ipswich in the UK with the ability to build up to thirty Stage 5 and electric pumpsets a month. The company is the only British owned pump manufacture with a complete range of Stage 5 emission compliant pumpsets capable of flows up to 2500m3/hr and pressures of over 20 bar in standard build configuration specifically designed for the hire markets of Europe and the USA. 

There is no doubt that climate change is making a major impact on the pump hire markets in the UK and Europe, not only in the need for greater use of pumps to prevent catastrophic flooding in regions but also the impact of these pumps on the environment when they are actually being used to prevent those very floods. Minimising emissions and costs of operation have suddenly become highly important to the pump hire companies and their clients throughout the UK with organisations such as the Environment Agency and Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) based organisations such as HS2 stipulating minimum Stage 5 engines on any equipment brought to their sites to reduce the emissions of the project specifically and their organisation as a whole. With pumpsets running for extended periods of time during flooding conditions, it makes absolute sense that these organisations are focused on reducing the energy consumption and subsequent emissions whilst actually operating the equipment, especially in areas of emission sensitivity like London itself where imposing heavy fines on organisations that fail to comply with emissions legislation in the city. Most recent Stage 5 engines saw the reduction of CO emissions by 30% which makes a large impact on any project looking to improve its environmental performance during the build stage on local populations. However, reducing emissions is only part of the improvements that the companies should be making by investing in new Stage 5 pumps for their fleets. Through the use of modern Stage 5 engines that generate much of their power at lower RPM’s compared with older Stage 3 pumps, pump hire companies with these modern pumpsets are also reducing noise pollution through better packaged pumpsets and lower exhaust noise through better silencer systems. With the modern electronics in the engine ECU, users can optimise the operations of the pumpset even switching the pumps off and on using modern electronics such as mobile phones and ipads, dramatically improving the environmental impact of any project even more. While some manufacturers of equipment bemoan and even fear placing diesel particulate filters (DPF’s) in the exhaust systems of pumps, a well-designed pumpset will embrace the technology and use it to its advantage by reducing noise and emissions further for the client. Companies like DXB Pump have designed an entire range of pumpsets around the 55kw engine from Deutz allowing it to offer a highly fuel efficient and emission friendly solution for a very wide range of pumpsets including 12” or 300mm high flow pumps to 50mm high pressure slurry pumps doing over 10 bar pressure on drilling fluids, all from a 55kw engine. The recent heat wave in the UK also highlighted the absolute need to design pumpsets with high ambient temperature capabilities especially with Stage 5 engines where mounting exhaust after treatment on the engine itself is proving a lower cost and popular method for OEM’s like pump companies. Challenges were then faced when overheating pumpsets with this design, required users to leave the doors open on some pumpsets to get enough cooling air in to stop the pumpsets overheating and shutting down on site in the middle of the job. The use of separate zones on the canopy to mount the exhaust after-treatment equipment along with the radiator discharge enabled some pump companies to achieve ambient temperature capabilities of over 45 degrees in some cases ensuring continued operations even in confined locations and the heatwave. However, Stage 5 engines are considered only a short-term stepping stone to even more cleaner technology including the frequent use of premium efficiency motors and also hydrogen power in the medium term. Some major organisations are demanding electric pumpsets for use in what were traditionally considered engine driven application because of the zero emissions experienced by the end user or site. Whilst there are some applications where this is possible there are many others where using a combustion engine rather than electric motor remains the only technical solution to powering a pump, hence the need for Stage 5. Some pump companies are actively embracing the design and manufacture of electric motor driven pumpsets as aggressively as Stage 5 engines with designs now becoming more integrated very early on in the design stage. Removing a Stage 5 engine from a pumpset design and replacing with a 55kw electric motor is relatively easy to do, the trick is maximising its overall performance in comparison to and engine driven pump. Most engine driven pumpsets engine are designed to retain a larger unused safety factor of power than an electric motor driven unit. Knowing this means that innovative pump companies can really offer a greater range of performance using an electric motor than an engine driven pump, as well as reducing the emissions of the individual unit.  Simon Ruffles, Managing Director of DXB Pump said… “The company has used this philosophy in its brand new WW250/15 wastewater pumpset that in 2022 has sold more than seventy pumpsets into the UK hire industry in Stage 5 engine driven format, but has now expanded its offering with the recently introduced electric motor driven unit.” He continued “We knew that diesel engines should not really run below 1200rpm, therefore we had to expand our performance range of this particular model by using an electric motor complete with integrated VFD panel, allowing it to run as low as 500rpm in normal operations generating far lower flows and pressures seen in night time running- this has been very successful with many orders for these pumpsets also being recently taken.” There is no doubt that environmental pressures and shareholders focus on ESG considerations are driving decisions on the types of equipment in the UK pump hire markets. With Stage 5 engines and IEC4 electric  motors driving up efficiency and reducing emissions so impressively, these new products will continue to drive forward innovation and reductions in cost of operation and lower emissions.

DXB Pump & Power the youngest UK pumpset manufacturer, has launched their new 12” Tier 4 Final emission compliant portable pumpset for use by organisations such as quarries and mining companies for high volume pumping jobs, especially in times of wet weather and rising water levels. The pumpset designed completely in house by DXB Pump & Power integrates the world class Cornell high flow pump and a Scania 13 litre 300kw engine to develop over 7500usgm flow rates whilst still passing solids up to almost four inches often seen in open lagoon conditions. Packaged in a sound attenuated canopy with integrated four point lifting and optional hook lift skid, the pumpset will be the highest performing 12” pumpset on the US markets with 400hp Tier 4 Final  engines, making it ideal for organisations that require pumps large scale dewatering and flood control as seen in some US sand and gravel quarries near waterways. The pumpset contains some unique features to DXB Pump & Power including its own in-house telemetry systems that allows quarries, rental companies and DXB Pump itself to monitor the performance and health of the engine and pump 24 hours a day anywhere in the world including the ability to send urgent communications to all parties concerned. Containing over 1000 hours of research and development, Simon Ruffles, Managing Director of DXB Pump & Power believes that the DXB team have developed a market changing piece of equipment that lays the foundation for large, environmentally friendly pumpsets in the US, assisting industries such as quarries and mines to achieve lower carbon emissions in 2020 especially those that currently have older equipment. He said “The implementation and use of Tier 4 Final engines is a massive leap forward for the pump industry in the US in terms of reducing environmental pollution such as noise and exhaust gases. We spent many long days and nights developing this pumpset which will be the foundation of our large pumpset offering in 2020 with an 18” pumpset using the same engine also being launched in February 2020.” The pumpset operates only at a maximum speed of 1700rpm, which is one of the lowest points on the fuel burn curve enabling the pumpset to offer the highest tonnes of water pumped versus gallons of fuel consumed and has an output equivalent to around six smaller six inch pumpsets used today in the US. “Like any large plant, the user and owners will see large savings in operational costs and fuel consumption by moving swiftly to Tier 4 Final that far outweighs the minor inconvenience of adding DEF at the same time as diesel when the tanks need topping up, just like haul trucks and front end loaders on site. With new tanks available from DXB Pump as well, with combined DEF/Diesel tanks in units that weight less than 5000lbs, these pumpsets used in conjunction with these modern tanks, mean that companies can pump  high volumes of water over extended periods resulting in some cases, pumping 300,000 gallons or more of water in a weekend between tank fills- this is unheard of in the UK but probably seen in the USA but it really uplifts productivity and reduces costs substantially for rental companies and users alike. DXB Pump & Power Limited is the newest UK pump manufacturer founded in 2017 by its family shareholders to design and develop the most advanced portable pumpsets in Europe. Since its founding the company has designed and built over fifty large pumpsets for customers in the UK and the rest of the world in application such as wastewater bypass, mine dewatering and many types of quarry applications. The company is privately owned and operates through international distributors and will be entering the US pump market in Q1 2020 with the launch of its entire range of Tier 4 Final pumpsets using the Cornell pump.