Tag: recycling

EXAIR’s Commitment to Sustainability

Published on by exaircorpLeave a comment

April 22nd is as important as ever at EXAIR

Every year, as the world celebrates Earth Day, we reflect on our environmental impact and commitment to sustainability.  This is significant at EXAIR, because it marks the annual milestone for assessing our progress and environmental goals.  As an industry leader in energy-saving and efficient products, connecting our corporate habits to environmental impact is in our nature. 

This year, we have focused on how to maintain our sustainability efforts and help provide unique solutions for industrial challenges, while also engaging with our community.  Our solutions range from optimizing compressed air applications, to utilizing innovative products to filter and reuse machine sump coolants.  We’ve also become increasingly aware of the need to conserve and properly spray water and other fluids requiring atomization.  In each case, we recognize the benefit provided for the application in terms of throughput, efficiency, and energy/material conservation.

Sustainability:

This year, our machinists collected the remnants and scraps from every CNC and lathe at EXAIR, sorted and stored them by material type, and arranged for their recycling.  We filled dozens of 55-gallon drums with wastewater, aluminum, 303 and 316 stainless steel, and brass, providing them to a local recycling center in the Cincinnati community. 

We also recycled 100% of our cardboard and mixed paper products, 80% of the trash placed in our dumpsters, and 100% of our wastewater, wood, and plastics. 

We continue to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels by focusing on local and regional vendors, preventing long delivery distances.  And, we send over 90% of our invoices electronically, eliminating the need for physical transit via postal trucking.

All the while, we look for ways to do more.

Industrial Challenges:

Our Application Engineers have provided assistance and support for customers in a myriad of industries; everything from ATEX areas in petrochemical facilities, to precision blowoff in food and beverage plants.  In all of these applications, they take the time to understand the applications so that recommended solutions minimize environmental impact and maximize the use of any energy required to solve the problem. 

EXAIR’s patented designs have a proven track record of reducing energy consumption, making them the go-to answer for environmentally conscious companies.

Community Engagement and Corporate Stewardship

Beyond our immediate operational impacts, we remain committed to the benefit of community engagement. This past year saw EXAIR’s first sponsorship of the University of Cincinnati’s Combat Robotics Team.  The young engineers who design, build, and compete in this combat robotics arena are doing so with EXAIR’s support and financial backing. 

This Earth Day, we invite other companies to join us in rethinking their processes to be more sustainable. Every step towards this goal, no matter how small, contributes to a larger change.  At EXAIR, we are proud to lead by example, showing that business success and environmental stewardship can go hand in hand.

We look forward to another year of innovative solutions, community involvement, and environmental stewardship. Together, we can make a significant impact.

Lee Evans, EXAIR

Refrigerated Air Dryers

Published on by John BallLeave a comment

Whenever air gets compressed, it reduces the space for the water molecules to remain as a vapor; which causes condensation.  For this, compressed air dryers are an important part of a compressed air system.  They are designed to remove moisture to prevent condensation further downstream in the system.  The three main types of dryers are refrigerated, desiccant, and membrane. For this blog, I will cover the refrigerant-type compressed air dryers.

Compressed air dryers are rated with a dew point rating.  A dew point is the temperature at which the air has a relative humidity of 100%.  Since the air cannot become more saturated with water than 100%RH, water will condense and fall out like “rain”.  You can see this effect during the cool mornings when dew forms on the grass.  Compressed air dryers are designed to reduce the dew point temperature of your compressed air.  For a refrigerant type, they are near the dew point temperature of 38oF (3oC).  Like a refrigerator, they use refrigerant to cool the compressed air.  We cannot go below this temperature as it could form ice inside the dryer.  But, as long as the ambient temperature does not go below 38oF (3oC), liquid water will not be present in the pneumatic system. 

There are two main types of refrigerated air dryers; cycling and non-cycling.  Cycling type refrigerant air dryers will cool a liquid mass, generally a glycol-water mixture, to a set-point and turn off.  The liquid will go through an air-to-liquid heat exchanger to remove the heat from the compressed air.  Referring to the cycling action, when the liquid mass goes above the set point, the refrigeration system will restart and cool the liquid mass again.  The cycling refrigerant air dryers are more expensive, but they are more efficient. 

Non-cycling refrigerant air dryers are more common.  The refrigeration system continues to run through an air-to-air heat exchanger to cool the compressed air.  It is similar to your AC system in your car.  With this type of system, they are more susceptible to the environment, i.e., temperature, elevation, and humidity.  So, adjustments are required for proper installation. 

With both types of refrigerant dryers, the internal compressed air section is very similar.  They will have a filter separator to remove the liquid that is created from the condensation from the cold temperatures.  They also have an additional air-to-air heat exchanger.  This will provide two important features for the refrigerated air dryers.  As the cold air leaves the refrigerant section, it helps to cool the incoming compressed air.  This will make the system more efficient.  And as the hot incoming compressed air helps to warm the cold air leaving the dryer, it will stop the condensation of liquid water on the outside of the pipes.  Like the dew forming on the grass during cool mornings, the same will occur with the compressed air piping system. 

Moisture-laden compressed air can cause issues such as increased wear on the pneumatic tools, the formation of rust in piping and equipment, quality defects in painting processes, and frozen pipes in colder climates.  Regardless of what products you’re using at the point-of-use, a compressed air dryer is undoubtedly a critical component of the compressed air system.  Delivering clean, dry air to your EXAIR Products or other pneumatic devices will help to ensure a long life out of your equipment.  If you wish to discuss more about your compressed air system or how EXAIR can provide a more efficient way to use that compressed air, an Application Engineer will be happy to assist you. 

John Ball, CCASS


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

Photo: Grass morning dew by RuslanSikunov.  Pixabay License

E-Vac Vacuum Generators- For More Than Just Pick and Place

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A textbook application for vacuum generators is the ‘pick and place’ function.  With ever increasing automation and robotic cells, more and more opportunities present themselves to utilize the E-Vac Vacuum Generator as a part of the system to ‘pick up’ an object and ‘place’ it in a new position. But the E-Vac’s can be used for many more types of applications.

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In-Line E-Vac

Another popular usage is to hold something in place. One of our customers uses an array of Adjustable E-Vacs to pull a vacuum and hold down various sizes of Styrofoam sheets during a machining operation. The previous system was a 1 hp blower type, and did not offer any flexibility for handling different size sheets. Sheets would slip and produce off quality results. After installing the new design, the system was able to handle any size sheet, and scrap levels went down dramatically.

adjustable_evacs (2)
Adjustable E-Vac

A unique implication that was solved with an E-Vac was to deflate sporting balls.  The customer printed custom logos, and preferred the items to be flat for the printing operation. Using a commercial grade electric shop vac didn’t completely deflate the balls, and motors burned out often.  Using a low vacuum In-Line E-Vac with a quiet Straight Through Muffler, the customer can now quickly and quietly, fully deflate the balls.

Another popular use for the E-Vac is to pull a vacuum for drawing up liquids or gases. A customer that manufactures automotive seats was having issues with the process, where the expanding foam was producing a gas, and the gas would produce pockets and voids in the foam after setting.  The customer used a model 800017 In-Line E-Vac to create a vacuum inside the mold and draw off the gas, eliminating the pockets and the voids in the final product.

Lastly, as I am big fan of recycling, anything and everything, we worked with a customer that recycles the old CRT style of computer monitor  (remember those?) The housing would be sawed in half, so that access to the internal components could be made. Because of the variability in the size and shape of the monitors, the customer was using an adjustable chuck system, which took time to set-up for every monitor, each being a bit different. To speed up the process, an EXAIR In-Line E-Vac and 5″ Suction Cup was implemented, and the monitor held in place by the screen, which was was very consistent in shape from monitor to monitor. This change reduced the set-up time required.

These and other Applications for the E-VACs and all other EXAIR products can be found on the EXAIR website on the Products page, under the Related Info section toward the bottom of each page.

If you have questions regarding E-Vac Vacuum Generators or any EXAIR Intelligent Compressed Air® Product, feel free to contact EXAIR and myself or one of our Application Engineers can help you determine the best solution.

Brian Bergmann
Application Engineer

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Reversible Drum Vac Empties Sumps For Demolition Company

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

A demolition company was looking for a way to remove the liquid from sumps and tanks in the industrial buildings they were contracted to provide their service upon. The liquids in question were mainly coolant and oil that had been left behind when the machinery was removed…anything that could be re-used was already gone; this was the “bitter dregs,” as it were.  Since these buildings are about to be demolished, electricity is rarely available.

They had a pumping system that ran off a diesel engine that they COULD take with them, but they ALWAYS had a large mobile air compressor for the pneumatic tools used in other processes in the demolition of the building. Since they had steel drums in abundance, the Reversible Drum Vac Systems sounded very attractive to them, so they got a Model 6295 Deluxe High Lift Reversible Drum Vac System for 55 Gallon Drum to try out.

The High Lift Reversible Drum Vac System converts a drum and dolly into a mobile pumping system.

Now, instead of committing an additional truck (and driver) to getting the diesel engine driven pumping system to the site, they simply move the Reversible Drum Vac pump unit from 55 gallon drum to 55 gallon drum as they’re filled. Once the drums are returned to their facility, they switch the the Reversible Drum Vac to the “empty drum” configuration, and use it to pump the liquid out into their recycling tanks, where they await collection and processing by their waste handling service.  Even when they have to use a number of drums, the High Lift Reversible Drum Vac Systems still streamline the process over the use of the diesel engine pumping system.

If you’d like to find out more about our Industrial Vacuums, or any of our compressed air operated products, give me a call.

Russ Bowman
Application Engineer
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