Industrial Blowers

Expert Viewpoint: Howden America on the Importance of Blower Control Technology

By Blower & Vacuum Best Practices Magazine

One of the most exciting technologies impacting the ability of end-users to optimize blowers at their wastewater treatment plants and manufacturing operations is controls. Blower & Vacuum Best Practices interviewed Tim Hilgart, of Howden America, to get his perspective on blower controls technology and its application.

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Best Practices 2025 EXPO & Conference Blower & Vacuum Show Report

By Troy Dreier, Senior Editor, and Brooke Jones, Digital Content Editor, Compressed Air Best Practices® Magazine 

The Best Practices 2025 EXPO & Conference contained plenty of sessions for industrial vacuum, blower and aeration blower professionals, including conference tracks, workshops devoted to pneumatic conveying and blower engineering and original equipment manufacturers on the EXPO floor.
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Blow-off Savings at an Aluminum Casting Plant

By Alper Alten, Founder, AAPM Project Management and Consulting

This article explores how a focused engineering intervention driven by data and a clear understanding of process requirements led to a transformative change on a aluminum production plant. By switching from traditional compressed air systems to low-pressure industrial blowers the plant not only maintained product quality, but also achieved a dramatic reduction in energy use saving nearly $455,000 annually.
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Show Report: Pneumatic Conveying at the 2023 Powder Show

By Kimberly Hill, Sustainability Events & Operations Manager, Blower & Vacuum Best Practices Magazine

The 2023 International Powder and Bulk Solids Conference and Exhibition took place April 25-27, 2023 at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Illinois. The event, sponsored by the Process Equipment Manufacturers’ Association (PEMA®) and produced by Informa Markets, is the leading powder and bulk handling and dry processing event in North America. It attracted more than 3,000 attendees and featured over 30 conference sessions and 350 exhibitors, showcasing bulk material handling equipment from 30 different countries. Blower & Vacuum Best Practices and Compressed Air Best Practices Magazines were among the publications available at the show’s entrance.
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Continuing Education at the Best Practices 2021 EXPO & Conference

By Roderick Smith, Publisher, Best Practices Magazines and EXPO

The EXPO & Conference focuses on “Optimizing On-site Utilities Powering Automation.” Experts from all over the world convened to discuss compressed air, pneumatics, motors and drives, vacuum, aeration blower and chiller/cooling and water treatment systems. Held November 2-4, 2021, this 3rd installment of the event continued to provide continuing education, certification and networking opportunities to equipment sales engineers, engineering firm and manufacturing plant personnel.
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WWTP Saves Energy in Biogas Recovery Process

By Uli Merkel, Busch Vacuum Solutions

Ever since it was commissioned in 1974, the Echallens wastewater treatment plant in the Swiss canton of Vaud has been generating power from the recovery of biogas. In May 2020, two old oil-lubricated piston compressors used to mix the sludge in the digester were replaced by one MINK claw compressor from Busch Vacuum Solutions. This enabled the amount of power required for this process to be reduced by up to 40 percent. For the director of the treatment plant, this means he needs less energy to produce energy.
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Positive Displacement Blower and Vacuum Booster Lubricants

By MD-Kinney

You have your equipment, everything is set up and ready to run, but what about your lubricants? Too often, lubricants receive little attention with respect to their use in rotating equipment. Even the most reliable cars in the world will encounter problems on a short commute if the wrong transmission fluid is used during a flush. The same is true with your Positive Displacement (PD) blower or vacuum booster that operates around the clock. In our experience, approximately 80% of all bearing and gear failures are the result of improper lubrication.
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Leveraging Rental Blowers for Pneumatic Conveying Applications

By Matt Piedmonte, Aerzen Rental

Pneumatic conveying applications are critical to many facilities – when you can’t move material you can’t make or sell your product. Because of a historical lack of availability of specialized rental blowers and air compressors for pneumatic conveying, plants often either accepted the production outage or rented a more readily available two-stage, oil-free rotary screw air compressor designed for 90 to 150 psig plant air service that is very inefficient at the reduced pressures needed for pneumatic conveying.
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Delivering Oil-free, Low-Pressure Air in Food and Beverage Applications

By Mike Grennier, Blower & Vacuum Best Practices Magazine

Blower & Vacuum Best Practices interviewed Deepak Vetal, National Sales Manager, Blowers and Low-Pressure Compressors, Atlas Copco Compressors, LLC. To put it in perspective, the food and beverage industry accounted for 12 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product in 2017. The main subsegments that use low-pressure air for numerous applications in this industry include meat processing, poultry, dairy product manufacturing, preserved fruits and vegetables, as well as brewing and beverage processes.
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Show Report: Pneumatic Conveying at 2018 Powder & Bulk Solids

By Rod Smith, Blower & Vacuum Best Practices Magazine

The 2018 Powder & Bulk Solids Conference & Exhibition was held April 24-26 at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Illinois. Sponsored by the Process Equipment Manufacturers’ Association (PEMA®) and produced by UBM Canon, this event is the leading conference for the powder industry. Vacuum, blower and compressed air technologies play an important role in dilute or dense phase pneumatic conveying systems. These technologies are well represented at this event and we hope you enjoy our Show Report.
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SHOW REPORT: The Inaugural BEST PRACTICES EXPO & Conference

By Mike Grennier, Blower & Vacuum Best Practices Magazine

Held September 16-19, 2018 in Chicago, the first-ever event drew 750 attendees who came together to learn and share ideas about the countless ways to achieve efficiencies with compressed air, blower, vacuum and cooling systems – and in the process – save energy and improve profitability.
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The Importance of Particle Velocity in Dilute Phase Pneumatic Conveying

By Hank van Ormer, Van Ormer Consulting

In open end pipe line suspension flow, or dilute phase pneumatic conveying, proper particle velocity is critical to continuing productivity and product quality. Until recently, measurement of actual particle velocity within the pipe has not been practical outside the laboratory. The plant operating personnel depend on a much less accurate metric - estimating the conveying air velocity in the pipe and relating that to particle velocity.
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The Heart of Pneumatic Conveying Systems - Positive Displacement Blower Calculations

By Roger E. Blanton, P.E., Sales Manager, Howden Roots

Pneumatic conveying systems are widely used in manufacturing plants and process industries. They provide a practical method of bulk-solid material transport. A surprisingly wide variety of powders and granular material can be effectively moved from one location to another within the plant. “Compared with other bulk-solid transport systems, a properly designed pneumatic conveying system affords many advantages".
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Packaging Printer Ink Dryer Audit Optimizes Low-Pressure System

By Ron Marshall for Compressed Air Challenge®

Compressed air audits are valuable exercises on significant energy users in a plant. Often done on main compressed air systems, these studies are also valuable on secondary systems, like dedicated low pressure circuits that feed production machinery. An audit of such a system turned up some surprising results on a process that was initially thought to be very efficient.
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Hoffman & Lamson: Engineered-To-Order Multi-Stage Centrifugal Blowers

By Blower & Vacuum Best Practices Magazine

Hoffman & Lamson has been manufacturing multi-stage centrifugal blowers for a long time. Lamson was founded in 1880, and Hoffman was established in 1905. Now a single entity under the Gardner Denver Nash Division, the company has some serious resources to complement its 100-plus years of blower expertise.
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Blower and Vacuum Technologies at the 2015 Hannover Messe

By Rod Smith, Blower & Vacuum Best Practices

Hannover Messe 2015 attracted 220,000 visitors with 70,000 coming from outside Germany. The blower and vacuum industry was very well represented and presented itself as a very healthy industry with high levels of innovation and activity. The goal of this article is to provide readers with a sampling of highlight technologies catching my eye – with apologies to the many companies left out due to editorial space limitations.
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Magnetic Bearings: An Attractive Force for Energy-efficiency

By Mark Hinckley, Director Strategic Projects, SKF Strategic Industries

With sustainability and energy-efficiency targets tougher than ever, magnetic bearings are drawing the attention of engineers in many industries, offering a whole range of advantages from increased performance to extended lifespan.
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Universal Air & Gas Products Engineers NGV Refueling Stations

Blower & Vacuum Best Practices® Magazine interviewed Kurt Kondas (President), Steve Davis (VP Sales), and John Haslam (Branch Manager - Charlotte) from Universal Air & Gas Products Corporation.

When a submarine docks for maintenance, the Navy requires a high-pressure, dockside, pier-power air compressor ready to be used in an explosion-proof environment. We have technicians working on military ships and submarines worldwide. For this, both UAPC and some of our technicians have been prequalified and have different secrecy clearances depending upon the project. In addition to our rental air compressors, we also have a fleet of CNG compressors available for long-term rent for the CNG refueling market.
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The Evolution of Biomass Compressors

By Robert A. Sturdy, CLS

When the Environmental Protection Agency was formed, in1970, it used its congressional mandate to issue all sorts of regulations regarding the discharge of contaminants into the land, water and air of this country. Over the years, air pollution has been one of the key areas where the Agency has put in place stringent requirements to control the emission of VOCs or Volatile Organic Compounds. Today the mandates of this government agency require extensive steps be taken to curtail their release by all operators of tank farms, chemical plants, refineries, fermentation plants and landfill operations. As a result of these regulations the Bio-Mass utilization industry was born.
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Furniture Maker Goes with Tri-Lobe Blowers

By Michael Camber, Kaeser Compressors

A large custom leather furniture manufacturer switches from rotary screw vacuum pumps to blowers for CNC router table hold down, and saves big on electricity, maintenance expenses and floor space.
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A View From India: Pneumatic Conveying of Bulk Materials

By G.D.Nigudkar, TATA Consulting Engineers

In thermal power stations, nuclear plants, and chemical and industrial plants, different types of bulk materials are used. The materials exist in different forms including lump, powder, granules, chips, and pallets. These bulk materials, in their different forms, require efficient and reliable material handling systems.
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