Besides a good salesman, nothing sells a product quite like a fancy brochure. It was three such glossy, elegant brochures that caught my eye during a document retrieval back in the winter of 2021. Only a few pages long each, but printed on high color, heavy card stock, their beauty was too much to pass up.
A short time later, I found a lengthy memo from Enprotech, who seemed to be acting as the USA distributor for these Japanese products. It included price to purchase two each CS and PS doors, as well as a separate price for 110 of each (enough to outfit both batteries, plus spare doors). But what was special about these doors that would cause a coke plant to show interest?
I also have an Enprotech brochure that outlines some of the services they offer coke plants and it also touches on Ikio doors and their benefits.
The first patent mentioned above was registered in 1974. By 1992 (shortly after this proposal was delivered to Acme), Enprotech took control of the patent. The memo goes on to extol the virtues of the door but without offering much in terms of specifics as to what set it apart from the herd. I think it is safe to say that it performed better in terms of emissions control and that was it’s selling point.
1991 pricing on a set of doors for a single oven was $32,100 (averaged, as CS/PS doors are not the same price). Scaling this for just a single battery as well as inflation, this would cost $3,300,000 today. And keep in mind there are two batteries! The doors weighed about three tons each – I could not imagine the logistics of shipping enough doors for an entire battery.
A search of Google’s patent database shows that the originator of the design, and the namesake of the iron works company that (at least initially) manufactured the doors was Takatoshi Ikio.
I cannot find much information on this person, except for a mention in a 2013 digital periodical from Spain, on the foundry industry (the below was translated and manually cleaned up/proof read).
The Indian foundry industry is proud to have among it’s ranks a foundryman like O.P. Patel. Mr. Patel, as we all call him, obtained the IIF from him with Founder honors, and he is the son of Shri Daya Ram Patel (Class A1 Civil Contractor). He was born on 17.06.1955.
http://www.metalspain.com/FUNDIDORES-Mar2013.pdf
He is one of the world’s foremost experts on the design, manufacture, machining, assembly and start-up of the IKIO doors for emissions-proof coke batteries. This is a world-class technology from Japan. He was instructed directly under the wise guidance of Dr. Takatoshi Ikio (the Inventor of the IKIO gates) at the Ikio Iron Works located in Kitakushu, Japan. He likewise was instructed by Mr. Y. Yamasaki, the inventor of the coke battery doors of latest BLUE SKY technology.
(‘Blue Sky’ seems to be a modern coke oven door, now manufactured in India which seems to be the spiritual successor to the Ikio door. )
But back to those brochures…
- The first brochure is for the Model I. It is not clear why Ikio still manufactured the original design once the new design was available, perhaps for a cost efficient alternative. This is the longest of the three brochures at nine pages, including a beautiful ‘centerfold’ advertisement inside the front cover (above).
- The second is for the Model II. It contains only two pages of new content.
- The third is for a ‘door extractor’ which seems to be the specific part of the door machine that grasps/lifts the door on either the pusher machine or door machine (it does not specify, so presumably it can be installed on either machine).
No way to know if Acme ever pulled the trigger on this trial as I have no further correspondance on the matter. And if you wanted to inspect the doors themselves for any logos or markings, you are about 15 years too late…..