New Pneumatic Conveying Process Minimizes Dust Formation and Increases Energy Efficiency

Coperion’s newly developed Fluidlift ecoblue is a pneumatic conveying process for plastic pellets, which generates less dust and streamers compared with conventional designs. The company says that product quality is improved while reducing waste. Its lower power consumption also allows plastics manufacturers and compounders to reduce costs and increase throughput. According to Coperion, it has been possible to reduce the formation of dust and streamers by between 50% and 98% under industrial conditions, while at the same time, lower the pressure loss in the conveyor system and hence the necessary energy consumption by from 17% to 35%. Coperion will present its new process, which is suitable for both, new installations and retrofitting existing systems, at Achema 2018 (June 11–15, Frankfurt, Germany). 

Attrition and pressure loss (i.e., the pressure difference between product feed and product delivery) can be reduced by a controlled increase in the relative humidity of the conveying gas. But the primary concern when developing Fluidlift ecoblue was to prevent any impairment of the end product by minimizing the amount of moisture introduced and subsequently reliably removing it. The result is that the granulate can be conveyed at a very low velocity, so friction between the grains and at the wall of the pipe is substantially lower than in previous designs. According to the company, this new process ensures a dry, almost dust-free end product without any need for complex additional measures. The new process is useful wherever attrition-sensitive products are conveyed and when the generation of dust is undesirable or might even interfere with subsequent processing of the manufactured pellets. It can be used for handling products such as films, high-purity granulates, and optical components. 

Source: Coperion, Hall 5.0, Booth D34