Development of Chemical Precipitation Purchased Equipment 

Costs: Mixers 

 

The following telephone contact report supports EPA’s development of purchased equipment cost equations for 

mixers by documenting EPA's communication with a vendor regarding purchase costs for mixers used in the 

Steam Electric cost model. 
Project No.: 0172.08.029.044 DISTRIBUTION 

Page _1_ of __1_

Project Name: Steam/Cost/Compliance Modeling 

TELEPHONE CALL RECORD 

 Outgoing Call

Date: 04/5/2011 Time: 10:20 am EST 

Company Name: Philadelphia Mixing Solutions 

 

Contact Name: Reed O’Neal, Chris Hibshman 

Phone No.:(717) 832-8858, (717) 832-8822 

Email address: roneal@philamixers.com, 

chibshman@philadelphiamixers.com 

Name: Kavya Kasturi ERG

GENERAL SUBJECT: Vendor cost request for mixers for a chemical precipitation wastewater treatment system. 

 

TOPICS DISCUSSED AND ACTION TAKEN 

On April 5, 2011 at 10:20 am I contacted Mr. Reed O’Neal. I explained to Mr. O’Neal that we are working 

on conceptual level costing of a chemical precipitation wastewater treatment system to treat FGD (flue gas 

desulfurization) wastewater from steam electric power plants, and as a part of this project we are trying to 

collect cost information on different components or units of a chemical precipitation system. 

I told Mr. O’Neal that we would like to obtain purchase costs (including ancillary equipment), power 

requirements and any available marketing material or brochures for mixers to be used in equalization tanks, 

reaction tanks, sludge tanks, and lime slurry preparation tanks. I told Mr. O’Neal that the wastewater flow rates 

for the systems may range from 7 gpm for the smallest plant to 700 gpm for the largest plant. I told Mr. O’Neal

that I did not have details for each type of mixer but I had an example for one plant. Mr. O’Neal asked for the 

details via email and indicated he would provide costs. I emailed Mr. O’Neal at 10:48 am on April 5, 2011. 

On April 7, 2011 at 3:30 pm, I was contacted by Chris Hibshman from Philadelphia Mixing Solutions. He 

provided me costs for each of the example plant’s mixers. He said the costs included the motor, gear box, shaft 

and propeller. Also, he stated that the equipment was carbon steel coated in rubber. Mr. Hibshman provided the 

following costs: 

\ 

Equalization tank mixer $60,000 

Reaction tank 1 mixer $15,000 

Reaction tank 2 mixer $22,000 

Sludge tank mixer $15,000 

Lime slurry prep tank mixer $4,000 

I asked Mr. Hibshman how to extrapolate these costs across the industry. Mr. Hibshman indicated that the cost

primarily depends on horsepower and speed which are used to calculate torque. He indicated that the impeller 

size, shaft and gearbox also impact the cost and these factors are often related to tank size. The impeller size is 

typically one-quarter to one-third the size of the tank diameter. I told Mr. Hibshman that we had the sizes of the 

tanks that correspond to the mixers he costed. He indicated that one way to estimate the costs is to calculate the 

torque for each of the example plant’s mixers and then calculate a cost per unit torque based on the costs he 

provided. Then he said I should calculate the torque per unit volume and that this value should be 

approximately 0.15 to 0.2 in-lb/gal. Using the cost per unit torque and the torque per unit volume, I can 

calculate the cost for a mixer based on the volume of the tank.