One of Europe’s largest manufacturers of plastic piping
systems has solved a maintenance problem and moved
towards energy and production savings through the
installation of high efficiency water filtration technology.

Steve Cupples, managing director of Industrial Purification
Systems, explains

The company concerned uses the
manufacturing method called
thermosetting plastics for the
manufacture of products for residential,
commercial and infrastructure sectors. The
whole process is an exacting one with the
ability to cool the thermosets playing a vital
part in total plant capacity. This is a high
temperature moulding process whereby
product is manufactured at temperatures
above 200°C. The cure or
cooling time required to
achieve physical stability
therefore dictates production
capacity.

By applying chilled water
through fine cooling tracks
found in the moulding head
the thermosets can be
hardened quickly. If this
cooling system blocks or
becomes fouled for any
reason the thermosets take
longer to harden which
effectively slows down
production. In reality this
could translate into a slow
down of just 10s. However if you multiply
this slow down across an entire production
line, this would seriously affect production
capacity and ultimately the bottom line.

In this particular instance, the
maintenance team had been trying to
control a number of issues they were
experiencing with its closed loop cooling
system which was not only displaying
discolouration through red deposits but had
become a breeding ground for bacteria.

They were mainly concerned about the
dreadful water quality in the cooling system
which was giving out an extremely
unpleasant odour. A continuous programme
of chemical treatment to kill the bacteria had
been put in place but this was causing a
build up of dead bacteria, the resultant slime
consequently blocking the system.

Production then had to be stopped for
cleaning purposes. As this was a repeating
cycle of events it was causing a lot of
problems. The issue here was not necessarily
to do with wastage of product but more to
do with a waste of time.

A SpinClean filtration unit was already in
place but was not capable of handling a
problem such as this.We therefore
recommended that the company installed
our new high efficiency media filtration
technology called the Crossflow AMF which
was fitted as a side stream filter during the
summer months.

The maintenance team was expecting
quite a large piece of technology to be
installed for the type of problem it was
experiencing which necessitated having to
cope with a cooling system operating across
30 machines in the moulding shop. The team
was surprised at how compact the filter
actually is and how easy it was to install.

The effects of the filter were seen quite
quickly with clean water established within 3
to 4 weeks. Of course this meant that there
were savings to be made against the
reduction of chemical use but the real
savings were on the cycle times. The build up
of slime had been affecting the cooling
capacity thereby extending curing times; by
cleaning up the water, the flow rates
increased, stoppages for cleaning time were
reduced and production speed on the
moulding machines could be maintained at
original levels.

The maintenance team had also been on
the receiving end of numerous complaints
about having to stop the machines and clean
them out. Since the installation of the
CrossFlow AMF the complaints have
stopped.

While those working in the moulding
plant will be enjoying a much better working
environment having eradicated the odour
emanating from the water, it is too early to
establish other benefits. However, from
experience we expect that the company will
see a big improvement in energy savings and
with maintenance downtime now being
almost non-existent we would expect the
company to s