Brazil's UPR has broken through technological limits and successfully developed a 22-meter-class monolithic fiberglass giant food storage tank.
As a leading company in Brazil's composite materials sector, UPR (headquartered in Rio Claro) has once again demonstrated its top-tier technological strength and engineering delivery capabilities in the research and manufacturing of composite material storage tanks, pipes, and fittings with its 22-meter monolithic glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) mega-tank tailored for the food industry.
According to the authoritative international industry media JEC Composites Network, this tank is currently the largest and most technically challenging monolithic composite material storage tank project completed in Brazil. The product is 22 meters long and 5 meters in diameter, with a height equivalent to a seven-story building, and a single tank has an effective water storage capacity of 400,000 liters, fully meeting the high standards required for drinking water storage in the food industry. To achieve the successful mass production of this ultra-large-scale product, the UPR team spent two months completing specialized technical breakthroughs. They not only structurally optimized the factory production layout but also innovatively adopted a phased production model—dissecting and implementing core processes such as precise tank alignment and structural reinforcement. This ensured both operational safety and dimensional accuracy without affecting the normal progress of other ongoing projects. The project consumed a total of 12 tons of high-performance composite material raw materials, and all technical indicators reached international advanced levels.
To address the special requirements of food-grade storage, the storage tank underwent an additional hot air curing process during production, effectively improving the material's stability and corrosion resistance. Before leaving the factory, rigorous hydrostatic testing was conducted to comprehensively eliminate leakage risks, ensuring that the product fully complies with safety standards for food contact materials.
“The successful manufacture of such large-scale, high-requirement composite material equipment is a significant milestone for UPR’s technological capabilities,” said Guilherme Loterio, UPR’s Industrial Director. “This achievement fully demonstrates that we have mastered the core technologies across the entire chain, from front-end engineering design and material formulation optimization to back-end production execution, enabling us to reliably deliver composite material solutions that meet the highest global technical standards.”
As a comprehensive service provider in the field of composite material applications, UPR’s product and service portfolio covers a full range of products, including stationary storage tanks, transport storage tanks, special pipelines and fittings, FRP system integration and installation, and customized anti-corrosion coatings. Its business spans multiple key industries and has accumulated numerous benchmark projects:
· Sugar and Ethanol Industry: Supplying 56 30-cubic-meter GFRP storage tanks to Biosev, 44 of the same specifications to Usina Cocal, and customizing 106 dedicated distillers’ grains transport tanks for Raízen, helping customers achieve efficient upgrades to their production processes;
· Chlor-alkali Chemical Industry: R&D and production of 20 Fixed storage tanks with a capacity of 40-80 cubic meters are available to meet the safe storage needs of corrosive media such as ferric chloride, hydrochloric acid, and sodium hypochlorite at different concentrations, providing reliable protection for chemical production.
• Environmental sanitation industry: Over 200 GFRP storage tanks have been delivered to major Brazilian water companies such as Sabesp, Sanepar, and Casan, providing core equipment support for urban water supply, sewage treatment, and other infrastructure construction.
• Chemical industry: 23 customized storage tanks and approximately 500 meters of FRP special pipelines were provided to Indústria Mineira de Fertilizantes for its liquid fertilizer production base, achieving integrated delivery of the production system.
The successful development of this ultra-large food-grade storage tank is not only a major technological breakthrough for UPR in the field of manufacturing large composite structural components, but also signifies that Brazil's composite materials industry has entered the ranks of international advanced levels in the research and development and production capabilities of ultra-large and high-cleanliness products, providing new technical paths and solutions for the upgrading of large storage equipment in the global food, chemical, and environmental protection industries.