With today’s pandemic, many people are finding ways to disinfect items.  I recently received a telephone call from an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) that was designing a system to sanitize shopping carts.  They made a tunnel for the carts to be transferred through and to be sprayed.  They wanted to use EXAIR air Atomizing Nozzles because air atomizing nozzles can spray smaller particle sizes than pure liquid atomizing nozzles which increases the coverage area.  Thus, using less of the expensive disinfectant.

They started with a purchase of four pieces of a model SF2010SS, ¼” NPT Siphon Fed No-Drip Atomizing Nozzles for this new project.  The Siphon Fed does not require a liquid pump as it can draw the solution into the nozzle by a venturi.  The siphon height can range to 36” (91cm) below to a gravity head of 18” (46cm) above.  In some applications like this, the requirements are unknown, and for the OEM above, it was no different.

To tell you about our air Atomizing Nozzles, EXAIR offers three different body sizes in NPT or BSP conversions; 1/8”, 1/4”, and 1/2”.  We offer a standard and No-Drip option.  A standard option has a liquid stem valve that is used to manually adjusted the liquid amount; and the No-Drip option will stop liquid flow when the compressed air is turned off, and not allow the liquid to drip from the nozzle.  We have Internal Mix and External Mix for use with liquid pressures, and a Siphon Fed for open containers.  With each body style, we have a variety of liquid caps for different flow amounts, and an assortment of air caps to direct the fine mist.

With their application, they placed each nozzle inside a square frame tubing to hold them in place.  (I believe it was to protect them for being removed).  To find the best coverage, they moved the Atomizing Nozzles to different locations.  They realized that the top air Atomizing Nozzles were too far away from the sanitizing solution to use the Siphon Fed type.  So, they decided to use a liquid pump to move the disinfectant.  With the features of the air Atomizing Nozzles, we had a simple solution for them.

They wanted to change from the model SF2010SS – ¼” NPT Siphon Fed Flat Fan Atomizing Nozzle to a model AF2030SS – ¼” NPT Internal Mix Flat Fan Atomizing Nozzle.  They were looking to increase the liquid rate as well as changing to a pressurized liquid system.  (The Siphon Fed type is for non-pressurized liquid systems.)  They already had the nozzles mounted inside the tubing, so they were looking for an easy way to change the nozzles for their trial design.  With the same body size, the air and liquid caps can be interchanged relatively easy.  I have an informal video that shows how this can be done (click HERE).  By just changing the liquid and air caps, the Atomizing Nozzles were transformed to the model AF2030SS.  Look below to see how it was done with the model numbers of the air and liquid caps required.

If you would like know more about our Atomizing Nozzles and the features that they provide, you can contact an Application Engineer at EXAIR.  We will be happy to help.

John Ball
International Application Engineer

Email: johnball@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_jb