While I was eating my breakfast cereal this morning, I was reminded of an application that I did with a major cereal producer that I thought I would share with you.

When the cereal flakes come out of the roaster they are hot and humid just like a cake when it first comes out of the oven. The thing is that they do not have time to set it on a cooling rack and wait, like a home baker would. So what they put in place were a series of pipes with drilled holes powered with compressed air. This would fluff the cereal up, both cooling and drying it out.

In an effort to reduce utility costs, the engineer that I worked with was given the assignment to reduce the facility’s consumption of compressed air. I introduced him to our engineered air knives that use less compressed air while providing an amplified volume of air.

Replacing the drilled pipes with the EXAIR Super Air Knives, they were able to reduce their compressed air consumption enough to shut down a 75 horsepower air compressor. In his return on investment (R.O.I) report, he calculated that the air knives paid for themselves in two weeks and conservatively saved $17,000 a year on electricity costs. Needless to say he came out a breakfast cereal champion in the eyes of his boss.

Joe Panfalone
Application Engineer
joepanfalone@exair.com