Paper / Cardboard Production Case Study: Saica Pack
Expel is the most effective compressed air filter available and was the perfect solution to the problems that the site was experiencing.
About the customer
Saica is one of the largest European players in the development and production of recycled paper for corrugated cardboard, with a production of 3.3 million tonnes of paper. With more than 10,000 employees across Spain, France, Italy, Portugal, UK, Ireland, Turkey, Luxembourg and The Netherlands, Saica has four business areas: production of recycled paper for corrugated board (Saica Paper), waste management and environmental services (Saica Natur), production of corrugated board packaging (Saica Pack) and flexible packaging (Saica Flex).
Project Background
At the Saica Pack site in Wigan, they were operating a desiccant dryer as well as standard compressed air filters installed further down the airlines at point of use to protect the sites vital machinery. However, these traditional compressed air filters only offered very limited protection and Engineering Manager Tom Leyland was becoming increasingly concerned about the frequent damage that was being caused by liquid water, oil emulsion fluids and solid particulates damaging the sites vital equipment.
In particular, the printing machines were of chief concern because of their heavy reliance on pneumatics. For example, the printers use small pneumatic clamps to open and close the feeding material to print, if those pneumatic clamps do not work properly the machine will not function. Additionally, the printer uses digital web guiding, an automatic knife and contact rollers meaning that this machinery is extremely sensitive to liquid water and oil emulsion fluids.
The pneumatic machinery at the site was most vulnerable to moisture exposure when the desiccant dryer failed. When the dryer failed this would drastically increase the volume of liquid water reaching the ordinary compressed air filters. Because these filters contain saturable internal elements and retain the contaminants they collect, they would rapidly become overwhelmed with liquid water, exposing the machinery to damaging moisture.
By continually removing 99.999% of liquid water, oil emulsion fluids and solid particulates from compressed air lines, Expel stopped these damaging substances reaching the printing machine.
Why did the site choose Expel?
By continually removing 99.999% of liquid water, oil emulsion fluids and solid particulates from compressed air lines, Expel stopped these damaging substances reaching the printing machine.
Expel offers a revolutionary approach to compressed air filtration. It uses Computational Fluid Dynamics to instantly expel the liquids and particulates that enter the unit instead of retaining them, meaning the performance of Expel never drops below 99.999% efficiency.
The site was looking to scale up their production. In order to achieve this goal, the site was soon going to be spending a substantial sum of money on the commissioning of new pneumatic equipment including printers, laser cutters and core cutting machines. After installing an Expel unit before one of their existing printing machines, the Engineering Manager was very impressed with the performance of Expel and realised that it is a far superior solution to any other inline filter the site had previously used.
Expel is the most effective compressed air filter available and was the perfect solution to this problem.
As a result, the Engineering Manager was very keen to roll out several Expel units across the site as it was essential that he installed the best possible protection against liquid water, oil emulsion fluids and solid particulates for the pneumatic equipment in order to boost productivity and reduce unnecessary costs and maintenance.
THE RESULTS
Reduces Downtime
Reduces Costs
Reduces Maintenance
