TECHNOLOGY | MATERIALS PREPARATION


Right: Injection moulding unit using AEC’s portable NGX dryer at Plastics Northwest


machines of various sizes. “Although our previous dryer was on wheels, the


two-part design of the hopper and the main dryer unit meant that we needed two or three people to move it around the floor,” says Dave Holland, Production Manager. “The other big issue we had consistently is materials sitting in the dryer for way too long when operators forget to monitor and turn the machine off. We’d have dryers going for six, eight, even ten hours, using a lot of energy simply because nobody thinks to turn it off. So, materials would just sit there and cook.” AEC provided the company with an NGX-P-150. It says this model offers best-in-class drying performance for a consistent dew point below -40°C in most resins and operating conditions throughout the drying cycle. With its desiccant bed and regeneration cycle design, it uses 27% less energy than a dryer using wheel drying technology, says the company. It has a flexible configuration and advanced colour touch screen controls. It provides data logging, trend charts showing critical perfor- mance parameters, and vital maintenance informa- tion. Plant managers can even remotely control the dryer from a computer or handheld device. “When it is in ‘energy saver’ mode, once it sees the dew point and the outlet temperature raised to a certain extent, it cuts itself back,” says Holland. “So if we’re running 180 [82°C], it’ll cut itself back to 160 [71°C] until it starts seeing a rise in dew point. Then it will raise it back up.” Plastics Northwest also valued the ability to adjust for the dryer throughput using a bolt-on aftercooler for high-temperature configurations. This keeps return air temperature consistently low, taking it down from around 65°C to under 50°C. AEC says use of the NGX dryer has helped Plastics Northwest: reduce start-up scrap on new jobs from 30 to 3 parts; reduce reject rate from 3%


to less than 1%; and cut desiccant changing time in half, from four to two hours. Koch-Technik introduced its EKO-N dryer at K 2019 (see Injection World March 2020). It recently reported on the installation of the system in a new operation at Dutch company Tacx in Oegstgeest. Koch implemented the installation of the complete central conveyor system from the silo to the plastics processing machine for Tacx – a manufacturer of training systems and equipment for cyclists, best known for its bottles, which are used by several professional teams. The system supplies around 20 fully electric injection moulding machines, on which technical parts are made, and four blow moulding machines, on which drinking bottles are produced. The main materials used are polyamides and polycarbonate, both in granular form and as regrind. EKO-N dryers are available in eight different sizes


from 110 to 2,000 m³/ h. Tacx chose the EKO-N 1100F (which generates 1,100 m³/h of dry air), together with 16 drying containers of various sizes. “Thanks to a temperature-controlled regenera-


Tacx relies on the new Koch-Technik EKO-N 1100 F dryer with 16 drying containers 40 INJECTION WORLD | March 2021


tion of the drying cartridges, the EKO-N dryers are particularly energy-efficient, as this shortens the energy-intensive regeneration of the adsorption beds,” says Koch-Technik. “The EKO-N achieves additional energy savings with the use of heat exchangers between the unheated supply air and the warm return air from the drying containers. This means that less energy is used for the heaters on the drying container. The frequency control of the drying process and the energy-saving flaps also provide additional energy benefits.” Material distribution throughout the system is handled by Koch’s “Navigator” material control system. The company says the investment by Tacx


comes at a time when people are being forced to stay at home more than they would like. “This is


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IMAGE: KOCH-TECHNIK


IMAGE: PLASTICS NORTHWEST


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