Neville Chemical modernised their resin filtration system in order to gain productivity, reduce waste, and eliminate a laborious task that was risky to workers’ health. The chosen Eco filter system fits neatly into the existing production line. The totally enclosed, self-cleaning filter further prevents pollutants from outside the system from contaminating the product and protects the operators from harmful fumes and spillage.
Neville Chemical produces a variety of hydrocarbon resins for applications such as printing inks, adhesives and assorted coatings. Today, with a strong line-up of Asian competitors, the market has become much more competitive. Neville Chemical thus determined that updating its resin filtration system with a state-of-the-art system on the finished goods line would improve productivity and reduce waste. “The call to upgrade our filtration on the solid resin line was beneficial in several ways,” says Rob Lonergan, General Manager of Neville Chemical’s Anaheim plant. “It not only enabled us to operate leaner through improved productivity and reduced waste, but also led us to vastly reduce the health and safety hazards that were present with our old system.”
Change in system
Neville Chemical has used a variety of different systems for filtration of impurities from its finished resin products for many years. While filter bags performed well in removing impurities from resin, their use was costly, required continual changing that interrupted production, was a difficult task for workers and was also potentially hazardous. All of these problems were eliminated when the bag filter system was replaced with a state-of-the-art, self-cleaning Eco Filter system from Russell Finex. Neville Chemical’s bag filters in question were located on the molten resin line, where the resin material is heated to 200 to 260 °C in order to permit flow. After being filtered, the resin goes through a flaking process before being solidified and then packaged.
The combination of resin heat and the build-up of contaminants causes filtration bags to load up and decompose to the extent that they have to be changed at regular intervals. “Unfortunately, those intervals require the resin product flow to be stopped before a batch is complete,” Lonergan explains. The Eco filter is a self-cleaning system that integrates directly into the pipeline and eliminates the need to change filtration bags. Thanks to the spiral wiper design, the filter element is kept continuously clean, which ensures optimum filtration efficiency. Due to the self-cleaning principle, cleaning the filter between batch runs is quick and easy with minimal disruptions during production changeovers. The totally enclosed Eco Filter prevents pollutants from outside the system from contaminating the product and protects the operators from harmful fumes and spillage. This filter also features the Russell Filter Management System, a technology that continuously monitors the filtration system, thereby enabling the filter to be operated efficiently without operator involvement. At Neville Chemical, this resulted in substantial savings in both downtime and labour. The Eco Filter additionally features a Q-Tap valve that allows sampling of freshly filtered material, so that the quality of the resin can easily be monitored on the fly without interrupting production.
Risks eliminated
Due to the heat and stickiness of the resin running through the line, changing filter bags was difficult, messy and potentially dangerous. “Each filter bag was about 1 m long, and they became quite cumbersome when full. If the person changing the bags spilled resin on themselves, the molten resin would stick and possibly burn them,” says Lonergan. He points out that in the past his workers also had to be wary of other risks when changing filter bags. Exposure to the hot resin, for instance, posed potential respiratory risks due to heavy resin fumes. “You couldn’t really control the fumes while the filter system was open,” he says. For all these reasons, filter bag changers wore face shields, respirators and high-temperature gloves. “All of those risks have now been eliminated because of the Eco Filter system,” says Lonergan. The competitive advantages of installing the filter system have surprised Lonergan. “I have to believe it is making us more competitive. The Pittsburgh operation tested an Eco Filter system a few months after we installed ours, and they have now placed an order. Also, we’re planning to expand the filter throughout our Anaheim plant.”
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More information on the filtration system
Literature
Achema 2006
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