Unfortunately both of these setups where suboptimal:
• The air-atomizing setup was unable to adjust the capacity of the release agent to the speed of the belt. The setup was also creating too much mist in the factory and this caused slippery floors around the disc pastillator.
• The full cone nozzle spraying the transportation pipe was wetting the product too much. Lowering the pressure resulted in bad spray performance.
The company looked for a solution that could solve the issues and create a cleaner and safer work environment.
AutoJet Release agent spraying system
Initial demonstrations and tests convinced the customer of our spraying expertise and technological capabilities. Coupled to the central diaphragm pump we agreed to install 2 separate systems that would help to solve their problems:
- Disc pastillator setup: An AutoJet® 2008+ PWM Controller is used to drive a header with three AAB10000AUH-03 PulsaJets®. This system sprays the silicone release agent on the belt with more accuracy and adjusts automatically to the belt speed. Compressed air is no longer necessary and this also prevents misting and spillage of the agent.
- Transportation pipe setup: An entry-level AutoJet® 1008+ Controller controls an AAB10000AUH-03 PulsaJet® for optimal spraying performance on the transportation pipe.
Result
The chemical company has improved their disc pastillator release agent and granulate moisturising process in a number of different ways.
First of all, the AutoJet® controllers adjust automatically to the speed of the belt and prevent the overapplication and waste of the release agent. Also, thanks to the PulsaJet®nozzles, there is no more need to use compressed air to spray the agent. These increases in efficiency limit maintenance and cleaning of the equipment to a minimum and amount to savings of about €18,500 a year.
More importantly, the increased efficiency of the system has limited misting to an absolute minimum. Spillage and slippery conditions around the disc pastillator are now a thing of the past. Furthermore, because the harmful fog in the factory has disappeared the air quality has improved immensely. This has a significant impact on the health and safety of the factory workers and the sustainability goals of the chemical company.