Tag: dust control products

Faster Batch Changeovers at a Pickle House with the BETE HydroWhirl® Mini

Published on by Jordan T ShouseLeave a comment

At EXAIR, a big part of what we do as Application Engineers is help customers solve practical process problems. Sometimes that means cooling a hot control cabinet with a Cabinet Cooler, moving material with compressed air with our Line Vacs, or just generally improving blow-off performance. Sometimes, it means stepping a little outside the “typical EXAIR product” conversation and pulling in the right solution from our sister company BETE.

That was exactly the case with a recent tank-cleaning application at a craft pickle-processing facility.

The Challenge: Cleaning a Small Mixing Tank Between Pickle Batches

The customer was running a small mixing tank used in the preparation of brine and seasoning blends for pickle production. Between batches, the tank needed to be cleaned thoroughly to avoid flavor carryover, ingredient buildup, and general sanitation issues. Like a lot of food processors, they were trying to balance two competing priorities. Changing over as fast as possible but still getting repeatable tank cleaning.

Their existing cleaning method was manual and inconsistent. Operators were spending too much time rinsing the tank by hand, and coverage inside the vessel wasn’t always uniform—especially around the upper walls and internal surfaces where residue could cling after mixing.

From an engineering standpoint, this is where tank washing technology makes a lot of sense. Instead of relying on a static rinse or manual wash down, a properly selected rotary tank cleaning nozzle can deliver complete, repeatable coverage while reducing labor and helping shorten cleanup time.

Why the BETE HydroWhirl Mini Was a Good Fit

In this case, the tank was relatively small, which made the BETE HydroWhirl Mini a strong fit.

The HydroWhirl Mini is a compact, fluid-driven rotary tank cleaning nozzle designed for small tanks and process equipment. In its 316L stainless steel configuration, it is built for hygienic applications and is well suited for food processing environments like this pickle operation. BETE lists it for cleaning small tanks up to roughly 6 feet in diameter, with 360° spray coverage, a self-flushing design, and PEEK slide bearings for long service life and minimal maintenance.

That combination matters in food production. When you’re washing down a tank between batches of brine, spice blends, or pickle seasoning mixtures, you want a nozzle that can do a few things well:

  • Reach the entire tank interior with consistent spray coverage.
  • Deliver enough impact to remove residue from the walls and top surfaces.
  • Hold up to repeated wash cycles without becoming a maintenance burden.
  • Use sanitary materials appropriate for food and beverage applications.

The HydroWhirl Mini checks those boxes.

How It Helped the Pickle House

For this application, the nozzle gave the customer a way to move away from manual tank rinsing and toward a more repeatable clean-in-place style process for the mixing vessel.

Because the HydroWhirl Mini is fluid-driven, it uses the cleaning liquid itself to rotate the spray head. As it rotates, it creates a vigorous 360° washing pattern that repeatedly impacts the tank interior. BETE specifically positions the HydroWhirl Mini as a solution for small tanks, drums, barrels, totes, and hygienic equipment cleaning, which made it a natural fit for a food production mixing tank.

At the pickle house, the benefits were straightforward:

1. More consistent tank coverage

2. Less manual cleaning labor.

3. Better batch-to-batch changeover

4. A sanitary material package for food applications

The stainless-version HydroWhirl Mini is made from FDA-compliant 316L stainless steel, which is important in hygienic wash-down environments. For a pickle processor dealing with acidic brines, seasonings, and frequent cleaning cycles, material compatibility and cleanability both matter.

One of the advantages of working with EXAIR is that the conversation doesn’t have to stop in compressed air. If a customer has a process challenge, our job is to help solve it even if the right answer comes from a sister company like BETE. That’s what good application engineering is supposed to look like: understanding the process, identifying the bottleneck, and matching it with a solution that makes the operation run better.

If you’re dealing with tank cleaning challenges in food processing, chemical mixing, tote washing, or other small-vessel applications, the HydroWhirl Mini is worth a look.

Jordan Shouse
Application Engineer
E: JordanShouse@exair.com
O: (513) 671‑3322
F: (513) 671‑3363
A: 11510 Goldcoast Dr, Cincinnati OH 45249
www.exair.com

Find time on my calendar by scheduling a meeting here.

Accessories for Your Compressed Air Products

Published on by Al WooffittLeave a comment

Here at EXAIR we are very proud of our Intelligent Compressed Air Products. We have spent a lot of time discussing their many benefits, including their efficiency, the fact that many have no moving parts, little to no maintenance, meeting or exceeding OSHA safety standards for noise or dead end pressure. One thing we don’t talk as much about is the accessories that go along with and complement our products. Several of these accessory items are the reason why our compressed air products can boast about having little to no maintenance, or reduced noise levels. In this blog I want to cover some of these unsung heroes.

From left to right, a few value-added accessories for your Vortex Tube: Hot Muffler, Cold Muffler, Automatic Drain Filter Separator, Oil Removal Filter, and Solenoid Valve/Thermostat Kit.

Some of the most popular accessories we offer are our compressed air Filters and Regulators. We suggest using these with all our products (or even with ones that aren’t ours).

The Filter Separator is designed to remove moisture, dirt, and rust from your compressed air system. The 5-micron filter element ensures that contaminants don’t clog or harm your compressed air equipment.

An Oil Removal Filter (which should always be installed after our Filter Separator) provides even more precise filtration by getting rid of oil and solid particles with a 0.03-micron element.

Our Pressure Regulators let you choose the operating pressure. At EXAIR, we always advise running at the lowest pressure necessary to complete the task. Pressure Regulators help you achieve that, reducing unnecessary air usage and fine-tuning the performance of EXAIR products for your specific application.

We have some accessories designed specifically for certain products. For our Line Vacs, there’s the Line Vac Hose. You can also find Thermostats and Solenoid Valves that work great with our Cabinet Coolers, and if you’re using Vortex Tubes, we suggest checking out our Mufflers.

When it comes to our Air Knives, we offer a variety of fantastic options:

If you’re looking for a simple and dependable way to mount your Air Knife, our Universal Air Knife Mounting System is just what you need.

If your project needs something longer than our stock Air Knives, or if you want to manage different sections of the air flow separately, our Coupling Bracket Kits are ideal.

And if you want to simplify the plumbing for your Air Knife, don’t miss our Air Knife Plumbing Kits. They’re suitable for all Air Knives that are longer than 24 inches.

If you’re looking for plumbing options, we’ve got a range of compressed air hoses and fittings that will simplify things for you.

Our Coiled Hoses work great with our Safety Air Guns, giving you more freedom of movement while you work.

Our Compressed Air Hoses are often used alongside our Industrial Housekeeping products to provide the necessary reach for the drum and dolly.

Finally, if you’re looking for a way to mount or position your Air Nozzles, check out our Magnetic Bases, Stay Set Hoses, and Swivel Fittings that can help create a complete setup.

No matter what your application requires or the product you need, we’ve got a variety of complementary accessory products that will simplify installation and adjustments. If you have any questions about these or any other EXAIR products, don’t hesitate to reach out to us.

Al Wooffitt
Application Engineer

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Take Advantage of the BETE Spray Laboratory

Published on by John BallLeave a comment

EXAIR is a leader in engineered compressed air solutions and static elimination, and BETE is renowned for engineered spray nozzle and spraying systems.  Ever since the merger, we have worked closely together to create a unique market appeal.  In this blog, I wish to cover an important department of BETE, the Spray Lab. 

The Spray Lab features a state-of-the-art research laboratory dedicated to focusing on complex challenges to support research and development efforts.  We test, so that you can get accurate values for your process.  BETE excels with high-quality nozzles for various spray applications, providing fit and function for our customers. Using advanced tools such as test stands, computer modeling, and in-house manufacturing capabilities, BETE’s Spray Lab improves confidence in the solutions it offers for your process.

Running the BETE’s Spray Lab, we have experts that can manage every aspect of a spraying system. Working closely with our clients to define their goals and limitations, they conduct physical tests to evaluate critical parameters such as droplet size, spray reach, and spray angle.  BETE also can use advanced computational fluid dynamics software to simulate the behavior of the droplets that would integrate into the process.  It can optimize the performance and find any shortfalls before manufacturing starts.  With the manufacturing facility located adjacent to the lab, the design team works together with the production team to create tailored solutions.  Overall, the Spray Lab offers a wide range of resources, allowing them to explore various types of applications and to evaluate the effectiveness of misting nozzles.

For more information about EXAIR and BETE, you can view our websites at www.EXAIR.com or www.BETE.com .  We would be happy to hear from you. 

John Ball
Application Engineer
Email: johnball@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_jb

BETE’s Foam-Busting Nozzles: Spraying Suds into Submission with Industrial Swagger

Published on by Jordan T ShouseLeave a comment

When I hear foam, the first thing that comes to mind is my salt water fish tank and the protein skimmer below it doing the dirty work of pulling all the fish waste from the water colum. In this case, the foam is good. It operates on the principle of air-water interaction and the hydrophobic nature of organic compounds. Air is pushed into the water, creating tiny bubbles. All those tiny bubbles provide a large surface area for the organic molecules to adhere to them. The bubbles rise to the top with those molecules and are collected into a cup at the top of the skimmer. Check out the photo below.

Saltwater Skimmer

This is a purpose-built foam generating process that is a huge benefit for every saltwater reef tank.

However, the same thing can happen during industrial processes and, in most cases, becomes a problem to fix rather than a benefit. Foam is undesirable because it can overflow vessels, create slippery and unsafe working conditions, interfere with processing, damage materials, and cause tanks to drain and dry slowly. Controlling foam can be accomplished by spraying liquid onto the pool, vessel, or reservoir’s surface, and allowing the spray’s droplets to impact the foam bubbles, causing them to break.

While breaking this foam sounds easy, “Just spray some water on it” in the process, it can be a challenge to get the correct size of droplets to break the foam. Droplets that are too small often cannot pop the bubbles, and if the droplets are too large they can break through them and create more agitation which creates more foam. You want a sweet spot where they are large enough to pop the foam bubbles while small enough to not create more foam.

Here is a real customer case, where BETE Application Engineers were able to assist the customer with an array of MaxiPass nozzles to knock foam down in a wastewater tank.

Industry: Petroleum Processing
Application: Foam Control
Product Description: MP Nozzle Array

Situation: A customer had processed condensate wastewater in a petroleum processing facility. The wastewater was in a square tank that measured 10’ x 11’ by 9’ (3 m x 3.4 m x 2.7 m) deep.
As the wastewater entered the tank, foam was generated, which was undesirable in this process. The customer had about 25 gpm (94.6 L/min) available to use to control the foam. In
In addition, the customer was looking for a turnkey system that could be installed as soon as it
arrived on site.

BETE’s solution: BETE Applications Engineers first determined that a 3 x 3 array of BETE
MP187M nozzles operating at 10 PSI (0.69 bar) would give the desired flow of 25 gpm total and
knock down the foam that was being generated. The next step was to review the customer’s piping
specifications in order to come up with both a nozzle header design and a feed header design.
Using one feed header and three nozzle headers, the customer simply had to bolt and gasket the
flanges, hook the inlet up to a water source, and they will be ready to go!

Whether you’re looking to optimize your industrial processes, improve efficiency, or tackle specific application challenges, the right liquid nozzle or compressed air product can make all the difference. EXAIR and BETE offer industry-leading solutions designed to meet your unique needs with precision and reliability. From air-atomizing nozzles to liquid-only nozzles, our innovative products deliver top performance across a wide range of industries. Ready to take your operations to the next level? Reach out to EXAIR or BETE today to find the perfect solution for your application!

Jordan Shouse, CCASS

Application Engineer

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Protein Skimmer photo courtesy of Stacina via Flickr Creative Commons License