Home » Industry News » Manufacturing » John Thompson – serving Africa’s industrial and power generation markets

With a history going back to the industrial revolution of 19th century England, the John Thompson name is synonymous with well-engineered boilers.

The company says it is now South Africa’s leading designer and manufacturer of industrial boilers. As well as related products incorporating heat transfer technology, they also design and supply new environmental equipment and provide maintenance services for Eskom’s coal-fired power stations.

 Since establishing a factory in Bellville in 1954, the company has manufactured over 4,500 boilers and pressure vessels.

Their package fire tube boiler designs, with steam outputs up to 40 t/h, include coal/ biomass-fired boilers with chain grate stokers, wood-fired boilers with fixed grates, oil/ gas-fired boilers and custom designed waste heat boilers.

Their industrial water tube boiler designs, which are suitable for co-generation, with steam outputs up to 350 t/h, include coal-fired boilers with travelling grate and CAD spreader stokers and biomass fired boilers with CAD spreader stokers for dual-fuel firing as well as pinhole and dump grates, industrial oil/ gas-fired boilers and waste-heat boilers.

 Its utility boilers business unit maintains and retrofits power generation equipment, including emission control plant, coal-milling plant and pulverized fuel systems.

Its energy management department specialises in the supply of heat energy in the form of process steam, the operation and maintenance of all boiler plant and the supply of fuel, water treatment and waste removal.

For industrial plant, such as mining and smelters, John Thompson’s air pollution control business unit based in Cresta supplies equipment – from engineered systems to unit dust collectors.

Products include reverse pulse bag filters, reverse air baghouses, wet scrubbers and cyclones; shaker type and silo vent filters, pressurisation units and dust suppression systems.

As part of John Thompson’s ongoing boiler development, and in response to the growing demand of a cleaner and more sustainable environment, the company conducts tests that entail firing a variety of biofuels.

Tests on these are conducted on the boilers of clients who want to use biofuels as an alternative to coal, oil and gas, as well as on the Europac boiler installed at their boiler development and training centre in Bellville.

 John Thompson is a division of ACTOM and has an international reputation with its exports to the African continent and its associated islands, Europe, USA, South America, the Middle East, Asia and Australia.