An overseas client from the Philippines contacted me recently. He works in the fish canning industry there. Their initial project was to use Air Knives for drying their retorted cans. Retorted? I had to look that word up to better understand the process.
Basically, they can the fish and then heat the cans up to 250° F for a specified duration of time in order to “deactivate” certain forms of bacteria and other contaminants to a level where they are no longer a concern for spoilage of the fish product inside the can. Since steam is the method used to heat the cans, a significant amount of water vapor remains on the exterior of the cans. This water must be removed in order to insure that no oxidation of the can material takes place. Rusty cans in the food industry are a significant concern.
The customer is presently using a couple of pipes with holes connected to a blower to achieve some form of blowing on the cans. This method really was not getting them the degree of “dryness” they were looking for. Here’s a photo of the existing blowing process.
With this kind of problem, the customer went looking for a solution to his can blow off after the retorting process. Through an easy Internet search, the customer found EXAIR and discussed their application with me. With some basic details such as can dimensions and line speed, we were able to determine that the customer could use a combination of EXAIR’s Super Air Knife and 2 Inch Flat Air Nozzle to blow the cans free of the majority of the water that was contained. The residual heat from within the can would be able to flash off any remaining liquid, leaving the cans dry enough to keep any concerns about corrosion from being a problem any longer. Following are a couple of similar application examples where EXAIR Super Air Knives were used to blow off bottles and cans.
By implementing an engineered strategy of compressed air style Air Knives and Nozzles from EXAIR, customers generally find that they can be much more productive and have higher quality results than with their own home-made solutions with old blowers and scraps of tubing. If you have a similar application, please give us a call or contact us by e-mail to discuss how our product may help you increase productivity, reduce air usage or maybe improve the quality of the final product. There are many reasons to consider our products to help with your application. Imagination is the only thing holding you back!
Neal Raker, Application Engineer
nealraker@exair.com