Advertorial
Just Trays keeps energy costs watertight with CompAir
L
ess than six months after installing a new L75RS regulated speed compressor with heat recovery from CompAir, Just Trays, the UK’s leading manufacturer of shower trays is on target to achieve annual energy savings in the region of £23,000, with a fast payback on return on investment.
Application details
Based in Leeds, West Yorkshire, Just Trays has recently undergone a period of investment, with the aim of improving its equipment and processes to ensure the consistent production of high-quality shower trays.
Compressed air is used throughout the manufacturing process to help produce over 800 models of shower tray in six ranges, from engineered installation solutions through to hand-made contemporary designs.
Inefficient air
The plant’s existing unit, which was around 20 years old, was no longer providing an efficient source of air, so Just Trays opted to review its compressor system.
Comments Ricky Dumbleton, Senior Production Manager at Just Trays, “CompAir identified that, by installing a new, lubricated screw L75RS regulated speed compressor, as well as a heat recovery system, we could benefit from considerable energy savings.
Just Trays keeps energy costs watertight with CompAir
“Our previous 110kW compressor was too big for our current air requirements, which led to costly idling. Working 10 hours per day, 4 days per week, the regulated speed technology in the L75RS produces the correct amount of air to match our fluctuating requirements and peak demand of approximately 12.5 m3/min, meaning the compressor
he uses of compressed air are pretty much universal from pumping up your car tyres to sophisticated control systems for industrial processes. In the medical sphere compressed air is used to operate simple mechanical devices such as drills and saws, ventilators and as a carrier gas in anaesthesia and inhaled medications. Compressed air at source is ambient air which has passed through a mechanical device(the compressor) which in industrial applications sometimes comes into contact with the lubricating oil. In more “quality” applications the compression chamber is usually dry of any lubricating medium. Water is a well known contaminant of compressed air based on the fact that ambient air containing an average 60% Relative Humidity
Medical Compressed Air T
is drawn into the
compressor and taken to 7 bar(G) which means an absolute compression ratio of (7+1)/1 = 8. Simple maths tell that with the water content now 8 times the original something has to happen and the physics is that the temperature rise steeply during compression and the air is 100% saturated but any reduction in this temperature will cause condensation. This condensation when oil is present is acidic and aggressive to piping and joints and obviously has to be removed before ingestion by or contact with a patient.
This is the easy part to solve. Compressors today come in a wide range of options to be oil less and with a cooler built in to condense the bulk of the moisture inside a compressor package. Then the residual water vapour can be removed by well known proprietary devices called dryers which may use refrigerant or a desiccant medium to remove water to the required level. Filters can remove oil, oil vapour and aerosol if present down to 0.006 mg/m3 when standard oil removal filters and carbon adsorbers are used. So if we have oil less compressors and a compressed air dryer with good filtration is that the end of the story? Sadly not we have to consider other risks. The measurement of the pressure and the dew point (the temperature at which water will condense out) is easy and low cost and very well known to engineers. So what else does the hospital engineer need to think about?
He might think...I am monitoring dew, point and pressure and I have alarms and shut downs...I am OK. Wrong! Ambient air contains 150 million dirt particles approximately 70% of which are smaller than the compressor intake filter. Ambient air also contains 0.05-0.5mg/m³ of hydrocarbons. There are two problems here. If an oil less compressor is selected it may be thought that there is no need for oil removal
filters...sounds logical? Secondly if a lubricated
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compressor is the base then often a small paper filter impregnated with carbon is offered as the final oil removal device. So the operational issues behind this are that the oil less solution working perfectly mechanically is still drawing oil vapours in, concentrating them via the compression process and then delivering them to the system. In the case of the lubricated solution the filter life is only 100’s of hours compared to 1000’s of hours for other devices.
So what needs doing to obviate the risk? There is a mantra in business “what gets measured gets done” or as BEKO TECHNOLOGIES put it “To Manage we must Measure!” The oil vapour should be measured and this is being taken up strongly by the medical sector in some European countries such as the Benelux region. BEKO TECHNOLOGIES have an instrument designated METPOINT OCV which will continuously measure the remaining oil vapour content in compressed air systems down to 0.006 mg/m3 with on board data retention and compatibility with current communication systems to enable trend management and shut down if required. In many installations where the METPOINT OCV device has been installed the user has been shocked to see readings for oil vapour where he though none could be present. Therefore the risk can be negated by measuring and if any vapours are present by the installation of a carbon tower which contains enough material to match the system norms for maintenance interval.
SHOWCASE
is always running at optimum efficiency. This is set to provide cost savings in the region of £15,000 per annum.
“In addition, the L75RS is capable of operating at up to 13.76 m3/min; meaning we have the capacity to cope with further increases in our air demands.”
Heat recovery
Typically, almost all of the energy that is used to power a compressor is converted to heat and is then wasted.
Using heat exchangers, CompAir was able to develop a system to recover the heat produced during the compression process.
Prior to the CompAir installation, Just Trays’ vacuum forming process required the use of four 9kw heat exchangers to achieve the required water temperature of up to 90°C.
The heat recovery system installed by CompAir enables the water feed to be preheated, meaning only one heat exchanger is required, providing additional savings of over £7,000 per annum.
Compair Tel: 01527 838200 Web:
www.compair.com
enter 807
BEKO TECHNOLOGIES Ltd. Tel: 01527 575778 Web:
www.beko-technologies.co.uk
enter 808 JANUARY 2013 Factory Equipment
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