Heavy Duty Line Vac Solves Alumina Spillage Problem

Published on by exaircorp
Spilled alumina material which needs to be vacuumed and returned to the main hopper.

The image above shows spillage of small alumina particles at an aluminum manufacturing plant in South America.  This customer needed a method to vacuum the spilled material and return it to the main hopper.  The ideal solution needed to be compact, simple, and provide repeatable results.  All of these are key aspects of EXAIR Line Vacs, so we began discussing application variables to make a solution recommendation.

Whenever we consider Line Vac applications we always explore the following variables:

  •      Bulk density of the material
  •      Size of the material
  •      Conveyance height
  •      Conveyance distance
  •      Required conveyance rate
  •      Available compressed air supply

The spilled alumina in this application has a bulk density of 1.1 g/cm³ (~68.7 pounds/ft³) which needs to be conveyed to a height of 3.3m (~11ft.).  The conveyance rate is not mandated, but the alumina particles are rather small in diameter and the customer wanted to move as much material as possible in as little time as possible.  Compressed air is readily available at proper pressures and flows, so we were left to determine whether a Line Vac could be a viable solution.  Fortunately we’ve found success in transferring alumina with our Line Vacs in multiple applications before, so we were confident we could find a solution here as well.

The height of this application is 3308mm (~11ft.) – an easy conveyance height for an EXAIR Line Vac.

After exploring the specifics of this application we determined the best solution to be the 2” Heavy Duty Line Vac model 150200.  The 150200 Heavy Duty Line Vac can easily move the alumina to a height of 3.3m at an estimated conveyance rate of 11kg/minute (25 pounds/minute).  There are no moving parts to wear out, which means little to no maintenance and reliable performance each time the Line Vac is used.

Our local distributor assisted with product procurement and in-country technical support.  So even though this customer was in a different continent, we were able to quickly get them the assistance and products they needed to solve their problems.

If you have an application and would like to work with an EXAIR Application Engineer, give us a call and we’ll be happy to help.  1-800-903-9247.

EXAIR Corporation Application Engineers
Techelp@EXAIR.com

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