Tag: slurry

Atomization: What is it?

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

Atomization is a word that can be seen throughout the industry in rinsing, coating, painting, lubricating, and cooling applications. The act of atomization is simple, we often refer to it when looking at liquids and it means to break up the liquid stream and form fine droplets.  This is essentially a transfer of energy. There are two mainstream methods to atomize liquids for an application, both with their own advantages.

142 distinct models. 8 different patterns. Liquid flow rates from 0.1 to 303 gallons per hour. If you’ve got a spraying application, EXAIR has an Atomizing Nozzle for you!

The first is air atomizing. This action is done by combining a stream of compressed air with either a pressurized fluid or a siphon/gravity fed liquid.  The air stream can be combined with the liquid internally to the nozzle, hence Internal Mix Atomizing Nozzles. It can also combine outside of the nozzle, like the External Mix Atomizing Nozzles. We have blogged before on where to use each of these as the reason to select between Internal Mix or External Mix is its own topic.

Benefits to air atomization are, smaller droplet/particulate size is achievable.  The compressed air atomization gives the ability to break up more viscous fluids to get better coverage or thinner layers of spray.  Air atomization also gives the ability to use smaller amounts of liquid because the air takes up a portion of the total flow exiting any nozzle.

The second type of atomizing nozzles are hydraulic atomization. This uses the energy from the liquid being pressurized to break up the liquid stream.  Sometimes there are physical impacts within the nozzle that cause the atomization, other times it is just the liquid leaving an orifice that causes the atomization. This gives the ability to still spray a liquid into droplets of various shapes, dimensions, and flow rates. The lack of compressed air often results in larger droplet sizes as well as higher liquid flow rates. Because the liquid has to be pressurized to certain levels it also becomes difficult to spray higher viscosity fluids through hydraulically atomized nozzles.

Benefits to hydraulically atomized spray nozzles range from stronger spray force for rinsing, ease of installation from not needing to plumb compressed air, ability to flow slurries, or other liquids that may clog or dry due to the design of air atomized spray nozzles.

If you would like to discuss the correct nozzle for your spray application, feel free to contact us.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF

 

Customer Uses Chip Trapper to Recover Boron Carbide from Slurry for Disposal

Published on by Neal RakerLeave a comment

boron carbideCT

In this short story, our customer operates multiple water jet cutting machines. They have slurry buckets stationed at each machine. When the slurry bucket becomes full, they want to empty the bucket and dispose of the slurry.

The customer wanted to use the model 6198 Chip Trapper to perform the function of filtering the Boron Carbide from the water component of the slurry. Boron Carbide is a very hard material used for making armor plating for everything from bullet proof vests to tank armor. Being such a hard material, the abrasive factor is really high. They were concerned about the abrasive nature of the material and contacted me to check and see if this material would present a problem for our system. Turns out that the Chip Trapper will operate just fine without any degrading of performance. The reason is that there are no moving parts that could be worn by the abrasive material moving through. In fact, the abrasive material never comes into contact with the pump of the Chip Trapper. The slurry is directed straight into a 5 micron filtering bag where the solids are pulled out. The remaining water is pumped out of the Chip Trapper into a water treatment system for proper disposal.

The customer did have a few questions regarding what was included with model 6198 Chip Trapper. The answer is basically, everything you would need to get the unit assembled and operational is included with the Chip Vac. The only input required from the customer is the compressed air utility which is in reasonable supply for this customer’s facility.

The customer placed their order with me directly and asked for a tracking number which was sent followed by the invoice which he needed to expense his credit card purchase.

If you have an application where you need to vacuum up an abrasive solid that is mixed in with water or some other non-flammable fluid, give the Chip Trapper consideration. You will be glad you did.

Neal Raker, Application Engineer
nealraker@exair.com