MACHINERY | BULK MATERIALS HANDLING
Right: The ZRD rotary valve from Coperion K-Tron is
designed for heavy-duty industrial service at pressure differentials up to 1.5 bar and temperatures up to 100°C
best configuration of their process equipment for a particular product or complete system (the com- pany also has a bulk material handling test centre at Weingarten in Germany). One of the steps equipment manufacturers are taking to address compounders’ chal- lenges is the adoption of Industry 4.0 solutions and development of enhanced control systems. “Industry 4.0 is evolving in the material handling industry and becoming more common with current technolo- gies, like smart phones and tablets,” says Burt. “Control systems today can be designed to network with a customer’s distributed control system (DCS) to provide preventative maintenance feedback, information on inventories of raw materials, and continual status of overall system performance. Customers are requesting equipment that is flexible and easy to clean, the equipment should address all safety and explosion concerns, and include a control system that can provide feedback and make the overall process more efficient.” Burt says that the latter – control systems – is a specific area of focus. “Our equipment and devices are being outfitted with network capable devices and instrumentation. This allows flexibility to work within several different platforms. We continue to develop equipment that is designed for easy clean- ing and is adaptable to explosion mitigating devices. We are in the early stages of developing a standard product line of Ethernet capable receiv- ers with web-based accessibility. ” Materials handling specialist Penta, part of the
Piovan Group, also sees flexibility becoming more important. A company spokesperson says that over the past 10-15 years many plastics compounders have built up processing plants that are capable of high throughputs, but a consequence of that has been reduced flexibility in recipe and colour variations. As a result, these plants are not econom- ic if small production lots are required. However, the current market now needs a high degree of flexibility on colours and different types of product. Penta reports an increasing number of requests to upgrade existing plants on a ‘smart’ basis – provid- ing easy technical solutions at low cost. However, Penta says that re-designing and re-sizing materials handling systems and equipment is not always a straightforward operation. The company explains that a further issue it
currently faces is that a lot of compounding bulk materials handling systems are at least 30 years old. While the metal is still sound, hardware such as rotating parts, filters and control systems are frequently outdated and this can make the whole material logistics uneconomic. In theory, this means a lot of current systems ideally require a complete re-build, but Penta acknowledges this is unrealistic. It is rarely possible to shut an operation down completely and transfer to a new site, so solutions are needed to install modern systems with the shortest downtime possible. The main technology issue for any manufacturer
Penta’s HurryCon provides smooth and gentle conveying of highly- filled blends in continuous operation
34
The VacuPulse from Penta is a low speed vacuum dense phase conveying system for abrasive and sensitive materials
COMPOUNDING WORLD | February 2018
of bulk materials handling equipment is flexibility. “For example, this means designing in a way that reduces cleaning downtime to zero or as little as possible,” says a Penta spokesperson. “Any materials handling operation, including dosing and weighing systems, also requires precision to minimise the cost of raw materials. This is particularly necessary when trying to reduce costs through the use of fillers, such as calcium carbonate, in products.” Penta says the addition of high amounts of filler
requires materials handling equipment that is able to handle a sensitive powder mix. For example, by using a hot/cool mixer process up to 25% filler can
www.compoundingworld.com
PHOTO: COPERION
PHOTO: PENTA
PHOTO: PENTA
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