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EXOSTACK Modular exhaust stacks
Exostack/Industries

Nine environments, and what each one asks of a stack

Your sector is a useful shorthand, but it is not what specifies the duct. Temperature, chemistry and particulate do. These are the nine situations Exostack is most often specified into — what makes each one difficult, and which specification answers it.

Applications by industry

Option B or C

Chemical and petrochemical

Process acid streams — sulphuric, hydrochloric, hydrogen sulphide, solvent vapour — are what fluoropolymer liners exist for. PTFE is inert to essentially all of them, so the duct is not the risk item in your corrosion register. Against the FRP stacks that usually win this work, Exostack comes in at lower installed cost and adds something FRP cannot offer at any price: you can move it, and you can change the liner when the process changes.

Typical streamH₂SO₄ · HCl · H₂S · solvents
Usually replacingFRP or coated steel
Deciding factorChemical inertness
SpecifyOption B, C if abrasive
Enquire for this application
Option B

Pharmaceutical and biotech

Two things decide it here. First, nothing about the installation involves hot work, sparks or grinding, so there is no contamination event to manage and no shutdown to negotiate around a GMP area. Second, contract manufacturing means process layouts change every few years — and a stack you can demount and re-erect somewhere else is worth considerably more than one that is welded to the roof above a suite you no longer use.

Typical streamSolvent · biosafety venting
Usually replacingStainless, fixed
Deciding factorCold install · relocatable
SpecifyOption B
Enquire for this application
Option A or B

Food and beverage

Fryer, oven and cooking exhaust fouls, and fouling in a rigid steel stack becomes a cleaning contract and a fire risk. A PTFE inner surface is non-stick by nature, so grease and condensate have far less to hold onto. Where the duty is genuinely mild the silicone specification is the sensible economy — we will tell you which side of that line you are on rather than default to the dearer one.

Typical streamCooking fume · oven · drying
Usually replacingGalvanised or stainless
Deciding factorNon-stick inner surface
SpecifyOption A or B
Enquire for this application
Option A or B

General manufacturing

This is the trapezoidal roof problem in its purest form. Modern industrial buildings are light steel-framed sheds, and their decks were never designed to carry a tonne of chimney at a point. The choice has been a secondary steelwork package or no stack at all. Guy wires spread the wind moment across three anchors instead of concentrating it at a base plate, and the deck stays as it was.

Typical streamProcess · fume · thermal
Usually replacingNothing — it was unaffordable
Deciding factorNo roof reinforcement
SpecifyOption A or B
Enquire for this application
Option A or B

Data centres and power

Every standby generator needs an exhaust stack, and the site it needs one on is live. A crane lift over an operating data hall is a risk conversation with the client, the insurer and the operations team before it is a cost. Two engineers carrying 14 kg modules up an internal stair is none of those things. Add generators later and the stacks follow without re-opening any of it.

Typical streamDiesel generator · UPS venting
Usually replacingStainless, crane erected
Deciding factorNo lift over a live floor
SpecifyOption A or B
Enquire for this application
Option B

Waste-to-energy and biomass

Switching from gas to biomass or biogas changes the temperature profile and the condensate chemistry, and the existing stack is often simply wrong for the new fuel. Replacing a rigid stack means weeks of lost generation. Changing an Exostack duct means an afternoon on a skeleton that never comes down — which is the difference between a fuel switch that pays back and one that stalls in the business case.

Typical streamBiomass · biogas · WtE flue
Usually replacingGas-era stainless stack
Deciding factorRe-spec without downtime
SpecifyOption B
Enquire for this application
Option C

Surface treatment and electroplating

Acid bath fume extraction is the hardest duty in this catalogue. Chromic, nitric and phosphoric acid with metal etchants, often carrying fines, is the exact combination ECTFE was developed for — and the one that will take a glass-based fabric apart. The constraint to check first is temperature: Halar® stops at 150 °C continuous, so if your extract runs hotter we need to talk before you specify anything.

Typical streamChromic · nitric · etchants
Usually replacingPP or FRP ducting
Deciding factorChemical plus abrasion
SpecifyOption C, under 150 °C
Enquire for this application
Option B

Healthcare and research

Hospital roofs sit above wards. An installation with no crane, no welding, no percussive tools and no road closure is one you can schedule inside a normal working week rather than around a ward decant. Fume cupboard stacks, sterilisation chamber venting and biohazard exhaust all fall inside the Option B envelope, and at 40 kg the deck needs no structural assessment at all.

Typical streamFume cupboard · biohazard
Usually replacingStainless, fixed
Deciding factorSilent, cold installation
SpecifyOption B
Enquire for this application
Option A

Temporary and mobile process plant

As far as we know this is the only industrial stack designed from the outset to be erected, demounted and erected again somewhere else. Assembly and removal are each a single working day, and between deployments the whole system stores on two Euro-pallets. For site generators, modular process units, seasonal capacity and contract processing, the economics stop being about one installation and start being about how many times you can reuse it.

Typical streamSite generator · modular plant
Usually replacingHired stack or nothing
Deciding factorDemount and redeploy
SpecifyOption A
Enquire for this application
Not on the list

Most enquiries do not arrive with a sector label on them

They arrive as a temperature, a gas analysis and a photograph of a roof. That is genuinely all we need to give you a useful answer — and if your application is not one of the nine above, it is more likely to be interesting than to be a problem.

The cases we will turn away are on the system page, stated plainly. If you are in one of them we would rather tell you in the first email than in the third meeting.

Describe your application Or try the selector first

What to send us

Continuous and peak exhaust temperature · a gas analysis or a description of the chemistry · whether anything solid is carried in the stream · required height and internal diameter · what the roof deck is made of · and a photograph of where it has to go. Anything missing, we will ask.

What comes back

A duct recommendation with the reasoning, an indicative installed cost with the line items behind it, a first look at whether the guy geometry works on your roof, and a straight answer on approvals against your programme date.

Next step

Tell us about the stream. We will tell you if this fits.

Four short steps — the process, what comes out of it, how big the stack has to be and where to reach you. An engineer reads every one.

ReplyWithin two working days, from an engineer rather than a mailbox
You getA specification recommendation, an indicative installed price and the structural basis behind it
CostNothing, and no obligation
Which duct? Request a quote