An aggregate company crushed limestone into powder, and they were having issues in losing falling off of their conveyor belts. The conveyor moved the lime from their processing plant to an outside silo for storage. The conveyor was 60” wide and had a “cracked” pattern for gripping and moving the powder. So, the surface of the belt was very rough. As the conveyor went around the end to dump the powder in the silo, some of the material would stick in the valleys of the “cracked” pattern. At the head pulley, as the belt made its return, the material would collect on the floor underneath. For safety concerns, they would have to stop the operation to clean up the floor. The customer wondered if the EXAIR Industrial Housekeeping Product would help them in their cleanup efforts.
Yes, it will. When it comes to industrial vacuums, wouldn’t it be nice to have a durable, long lasting vacuum that is quiet? There is such a vacuum that has these qualities; the EXAIR Heavy Duty Dry Vac System. This vacuum system has no moving parts, no motors to fail, or bearings to wear. They only require compressed air to operate. The Heavy Duty Dry Vac is used to vacuum solid materials like plastic, sand, and even denser materials like steel shot. So, it would work great with the lime material. The vacuum pumps are made from a hardened alloy construction to resist wear and abrasion, and it is designed to generate a strong vacuum level. This would have been a great solution for cleaning for this company above. But, as an Application Engineer, I was able to provide a better solution, the EXAIR Super Air Knife System. Instead of cleaning the mess afterwards, we can stop the mess from happening.
EXAIR can create a non-contact wiping process at the dumping end of the conveyor. We have that ability with our Super Air Knife System. At EXAIR, we pride ourselves in energy efficiency. Compressed air is expensive to make, so why not use it as effectively as you can? The Super Air Knife has a 40:1 amplification ratio which allows 40 parts of ambient “free” air for every 1 part of compressed air. I recommended a model 110260SSPKI, 60″ Stainless Steel Super Air Knife Kit for this application. This Super Air Knife is made from Stainless Steel for chemical compatibility with lime.
EXAIR stocks the Super Air Knife at the 60” size for a continuous even blowing force across the entire length. The kit included a filter, a regulator, and a shim set to “dial” in the minimum amount of force to remove the material without blowing the lime powder into the ambient air. The “PKI” suffix at the end of the model number indicates our Plumbing Kit. This option is Installed on the Super Air Knife to allow for easy installation and to allow for the proper inlet airflow to get a consistent blow-off device. After installing the model 110260SSPKI, the powder was no longer collecting on the floor underneath. If we look at the cost of the increase in lime material and the removal of custodial duties, the Return on Investment, ROI, was only 27 days. The photo below shows the floor before installing the Super Air Knife.
Spillage is wasteful, costly, and time consuming to clean up. If you have excess waste from your conveying system, EXAIR will have the product to help you. For the aggregate facility above, the Super Air Knife Kit made it possible to increase production efficiencies with a short ROI. And, since they liked the durability of our Industrial Housekeeping Products, they still purchased the Heavy Duty Dry Vac for cleanup in other areas in their facility. If you want to improve your aggregate conveying operations with non-contact blowing or housekeeping, you can contact an Application Engineer to review your possibilities.
John Ball – Application Engineer
Email: johnball@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_jb