Buell Division

Buell Engineering Co. was founded by Sprout Waldren in Warren, PA in 1934. Sometime before World War II it was sold to Consolidated Goldfields (London & Johannesburg) and moved to New York City. In the mid 1930s Buell licensed to cyclone technology of Van Tongren, a Dutch company.

In 1942, Buell was asked to design cyclone systems using cyclones with a diameter of about 4 feet to replace 10 inch diameter axial inlet cyclones in a new fluid bed process. The process was a fluid catalytic cracking unit designed by Esso Engineering to crack heavy oil into high octane gasoline. During the war effort high octane gasoline was in demand for the allied aircraft, the government ordered Esso Engineering, Universal Oil Products Co. and M.W. Kellogg Co. to pool their knowledge on this process and build new cracking units as fast as possible. Buell cyclones were used in all of these units, some of which are still in operation today.

The idea of installing cyclones inside the top head of a high temperature vessel and returning the solids collected in each cyclone to the bottom of the vessel through a pipe on the bottom of the cyclone was a completely new concept. The experience and knowledge gained by Buell during this period is still the basis for the design of fluid bed cyclone systems.

In 1955 Buell, through another licensing agreement with Van Tongren, obtained the designs and technologies for pneumatic particulate classifying systems, originally developed by Van Tongren. These classification systems, which have no moving parts, produce precision of particulate separations that are second only to screens, high maintenance equipment that is avoided whenever possible.

In 1963, following the purchase of a fabrication shop in Lebanon PA by Consolidated Goldfields, Buell was moved to it current location in Lebanon, PA. At this time Buell dissolved its association with Van Tongren. Over the years the owner has changed several times but the same high quality and expertise in the field has remained the same. In 1971 Consolidated Goldfields sold Buell to Envirotech Corp. In 1981 Envirotech Corp. sold the Buell Division and another division to the General Electric Co. These two Envirotech Divisions were merged into the General Electric Environmental Services Co. (GEESI). In 1997 the General Electric Co. sold most of the assets of GEESI to a Canadian company, Marsulex Environmental Technologies LLC. In 2001 the Buell assets were sold to Fisher-Klosterman, Inc.