Two retrofit Belgian projects for energy saving
- Related Solution:
- RONAIR® Drying & blowing technology
A Belgian company who specializes in the recovery, recycling and reindustrialization of zinc alloys. contacted us for energy saving projects. The production of recycled raw materials is an energy consuming process. During the process of recycling zinc from waste streams, the freshly casted casted ingots of zinc alloy with compressed air. The ingots pass in badges under the nozzles of compressed air by means of a big carousel. After this step, the ingots pass a water bath, to continue the cooling process. In a third step compressed air nozzles blow off the water drops. In order to save energy, investments were made to replace the compressed air nozzles by blower driven airknives. CYAGO delivered in a first step a retrofit building kit of 11 stainless steel airknives, the connecting components and a 22 kW blower to replace the compressed air nozzles on the carousel and the nozzles after the cooling water bath. In a second step CYAGO installed another retrofit kit on a cooling line after a water bath. This skid consists of 12 stainless steel airknives and a 22 kW blower.
‘A ROI of approximately 8 months and an energy saving of 80% is not an exeption.’
Johan Wyckaert, managing director and engineer at CYAGO
Testing guarantees feasibilty
In order to guarantee the feasibility of the project, CYAGO, offers the possibility of a big range of tests in their testlab. A lot of tests has been done on the zinc alloy ingots. In this way, te zinc company saw the results on the test reports and was able to see the working of the blower driven airknives and the feasibility of the investment. Once the test result was fully approved, a project of energy saving started.
By using the test facilities, the feasibility of the project was guaranteed.
Waste of energy on ‘FREE’ COMPRESSED AIR
In industry, a lot of companies still misperceive compressed air as a ‘free’ resource. In reality the opposite is true. Changing from compressed air to a blower-driven air knife system can save thousands of euro’s per month. These blower-driven systems are up to 80% cheaper to operate than compressed air dryers. Compressed air is expensive because it is discharged at high pressure which is then reduced to the lower required pressure. This conversion results in huge energy losses. Thanks the experience of the CYAGO-engineers, the blower-driven systems are designed to operate at the required air pressure. ROI’s of several months are no exception.
Blower-driven airknife systems are custom-configured to ensure optimum performance with no waste of energy unlike ‘free’ compressed air.
ROI of several months
Changing from compressed air to a blower-driven air knife system saves thousands of euros per month. A ROI of approximately 8 months and an energy saving of 80% is not an exception.
To give you an idea in terms of savings, on the right we give an example of another case.
Retrofit avoids a totally new installation
Dedication, diligence and passion are synonymous with our ‘YOBO’ spirit (“You Only Blow Once”).
