Technology

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.

This article aims to discuss the various technologies of equipment that could be presented to a wastewater operator faced with a temporary need for blower air and to help the operator understand the impact (both monetarily through a “Total Cost of Rental” approach and environmentally) of their decisions.

Real world blower applications rarely operate at steady state design conditions. There are a variety of reasons for this. Designs usually include a margin of safety to accommodate unforeseen conditions. Typically, the process demand itself is variable, requiring a corresponding ability to modulate the blower flowrate.

In an ongoing project to improve processes whenever and wherever it can, a global manufacturer of private label retail, food service and specialty brand teas, purchased an extension conveyor system to improve efficiency and ergonomics. Prior to implementing the extension conveyor, a vacuum conveyor system transferred raw materials into portable silos that workers rolled from one production machine to the next.

We present a few case studies derived on real-world application examples, where various vacuum technologies may be suitable solutions. Each case is generalized enough that the knowledge is applicable across multiple specific applications.

The food industries can have many messy processes, whether it is poultry evisceration, deboned waste conveying, bottling, or sugar cake filtration. Liquid ring vacuum pumps (LRVP’s) are often utilized as the backbone of these processes because they can handle the soft solids, debris, and particles that can easily get sucked into the vacuum pump. So how does a LRVP work, why does it work in these processes, and how to make sure they keep working?

Many of us are familiar with sizing vacuum pumps based on throughput, process pressure requirements, chamber size, pump down times, conductance and leakage. In a lot of cases, humidity becomes an afterthought and unexpected things happen. Some of these unexpected things we learn to live with, like emulsified oil. In other cases, the unexpected things prevent the pump from performing the job it was intended for. 

A small site located within a floodplain, prone to erosion, and currently occupied by an existing in-service wastewater treatment facility is not at the top of any engineer’s list for a desirable site to expand a wastewater treatment plant or reclamation facility. However, these challenges created opportunity for specialized solutions during the design of the facility expansion; in particular, in designing the aeration and digester blower system.

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.

Wintek Corporation was contacted by a plastics manufacturing company in the summer of 2015 to evaluate their process vacuum capabilities. The customer was looking to replace a recently purchased used vacuum system to be used in a PET solid state polymerization/drying application. The process required high heat and vacuum and needed to run at 1 mBarA (0.75 Torr). The customer had purchased the dryer and accompanying vacuum system from an overseas supplier. While they were happy with the dryer, the vacuum system was not delivering the desired performance.