Industrial chemical tanks play an essential role in many facilities, able to store and process a wide range of materials. These tanks are designed to store even the harshest and most corrosive chemicals, such as ethylene glycol or sodium chloride. Thanks to their corrosion resistance and heavy duty design, industrial chemical tanks can be used inside or outside, giving you peace of mind that your chemicals and liquids are kept safe. Even more importantly, you can have confidence that you won’t accidentally harm the environment.

Whether you need to store 3 gallons or 15,000, industrial chemical tanks can fulfill a wide range of needs. But just like every other piece of industrial equipment, they will get dirty. After all, liquid chemicals and other coatings are often designed to stick to surfaces, meaning they’ll also stick to the inside of the processing tank. And when proper steps aren’t taken to clean out your industrial tanks, you could soon find future batches of chemicals contaminated with hardened deposits or other residue. This can be especially problematic if you plan to start processing a new material in a particular tank.

So how can you ensure that sludge, hard deposits, and other forms of contamination don’t impact the effectiveness of your industrial chemical tanks? The solution lies in employing the proper cleaning methods. Here’s a closer look at the steps you should take to clean out your industrial chemical tanks.

Applying Disinfectant

Depending on the type of materials that have been processed in your industrial chemical tanks, you’ll want to begin the cleaning process by applying disinfectant to the inside of the tank. This is generally required for residues that aren’t as easy to clean with water alone. A coat of disinfectant before beginning the water spray will ensure that all coated-on materials will be effectively removed.

While many companies used to have workers enter the tank to manually apply disinfectant, the introduction of modern technologies means this no longer has to be the case. A rotary spray head can be inserted into the tank to provide a thorough coating, helping save time and reduce health risks for employees.

Rotary Spray

After disinfectant has been applied, the next step is to wash the inside of the tank with high-pressure jets of water. As with the application of the disinfectant itself, this is most easily accomplished with the use of a rotary spray head. Rotary spray heads use rotating nozzles to shoot high-pressure streams of water at the inside of the tank. They can also be placed at almost any angle. This ensures 100% coverage of the tank interior -- even those hard to reach places that an employee couldn’t clean manually.

For residues from dry materials or powders, facility owners can often achieve a thorough cleaning using only water, with no need to apply a chemical disinfectant beforehand. By using a rotary spray head, you will be able to finish the cleaning in a fraction of the time as other methods, while also reducing total water usage.

Waste Disposal

It’s not enough to simply spray the inside of your industrial chemical tanks with high-pressure jets of water. After all, the waste runoff needs to go somewhere, and you don’t want it to go in a place where it will have a negative impact on the local environment or community.

The water runoff that is created from the cleaning process contains many harmful chemicals, and as a liquid, it can’t simply be taken to a landfill. Instead, hazardous liquids need to be disposed of in an underground injection well. These specialized wells are designed to keep hazardous liquids from contaminating the local groundwater supply. Before you begin the industrial chemical tank cleaning process, be sure you have a way to collect wastewater and transport it to an appropriate location. Local government resources can help you find the closest disposal facility.