Industries

Multiple vacuum pumps can be running mostly “dead-headed” in the many production systems that don’t require constant flow.  Any system that evacuates a small volume and then holds a product down while it is being machined, or sucks a bag shut to seal will spend the majority of its time not moving much mass of air.  This type of operation is found everywhere in secondary wood processing, machining, food packaging, and many other industries.  Anywhere vacuum is used as a motive force or to evacuate a small volume repeatedly.  This article will apply to any of these types of systems- and not apply to constant-flow vacuum applications in the process industries.

Vacuum and blower systems are commonplace in food manufacturing facilities. Bakeries, flour mills, breweries, and dairy plants are just a few of the many sites where vacuum pumps and blowers are used. While these facilities may leverage both types of systems, vacuum pumps are more commonly used when processing meats, fish and poultry. Other common vacuum applications include maple sap extraction, confection, vacuum coating, and juice distillation.

During the summer season, vegetables tend to deteriorate quickly once harvested from the field—or during postharvest stage of the cold chain. In traditional cold chain systems, vegetables are put into a chilled cooler for preservation, a process that requires approximately 12 hours for the product to achieve proper temperature. In some instances, as much as 25 percent of food product in the chilled cooler will decay before arriving at a proper storage area. Fortunately, there is a process for improving the effectiveness of the postharvest stage—vacuum cooling.

The Ilmajoki sewage treatment plant (STP) located in southern Finland was built in the mid-1970s during a boom of infrastructure construction. Over time, industrial presence in the Ilmajoki area grew, and the plant saw an increase in flow of industrial effluent—or liquid waste and sewage. As the amount of influent increased, the plant was no longer able to meet required performance criteria suffered from a severe lack of oxygen—particularly during peak loading times.

Yeast fermentation is a vital process in the production of many food and beverage products. It is a common application within breweries, bakeries, and wineries, along with other facilities where biogas and ethanol are produced. In these facilities, fermentation tanks filled with a reaction liquid are often supplied with air from blowers. Recently, there has been a trend in the adoption of high-speed turbo blowers for yeast fermentation applications, as the blower technology can yield large energy savings if properly installed and controlled.

Within the “zero-loss” culture at General Mills, plant personnel identify and optimize major energy users in each facility. Common opportunities include: the optimization of dryers, ovens and freezers; compressed air optimization projects; improvements to building heating and cooling system; and lighting replacement innovations. In addition, engineers at General Mills have started to explore new energy-saving opportunities within the vacuum and blower systems at their production facilities. To better understand how any production system is addressed at General Mills, an examination of the company’s energy management methodology is required.

Industrial vacuum trucks, also known as industrial vacuum loaders, are used to recover, contain, and carry solids, dry bulk powders, liquids, slurries, and thick sludge from hard-to-reach areas. Guzzler Manufacturing, an industrial vacuum truck manufacturer based in Streator, Illinois, has long-standing expertise in pneumatic conveying—both dilute and dense phase—for all kinds of industrial applications.

Compressed air audits are valuable exercises on significant energy users in a plant.  Often done on main compressed air systems, these studies are also valuable on secondary systems, like dedicated low pressure circuits that feed production machinery.  An audit of such a system turned up some surprising results on a process that was initially thought to be very efficient.

Hoffman & Lamson has been manufacturing multi-stage centrifugal blowers for a long time. Lamson was founded in 1880, and Hoffman was established in 1905. Now a single entity under the Gardner Denver Nash Division, the company has some serious resources to complement its 100-plus years of blower expertise.

Metallurgical High Vacuum Corporation (MHV) is proud to announce another milestone in their commitment to excellence: they were awarded certification attesting to establishment of their quality management system in conformance with the International Quality System Standard ISO 9000-2008, with a scope for Design and Manufacture of High Vacuum Mechanical Pumps and Rebuild of Mechanical Pumps.