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Get your video CDs out of your desk drawer and onto the web |
February 26, 2007 |
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Posted by Don Dunnington at 07:27 PM | Comments (0) |
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Have you tried sharing a video on the new Powderandbulk.com Video Center?
This is about as easy as it gets for equipment makers to demonstrate how their machines work.
You don't have to do a big production to do this. It isn't a TV commercial. Quick and simple are the norm for Internet video.
For a discussion of Internet video production values see "A New Industrial 'YouTube' for the World's Engineers" on the IAOC blog.
How to Upload Your Own Videos
Following is a step by step description of how easy it is to sign up and post your own video. The whole process takes just a very few minutes.
1. Click the Upload Tab
Enter your email, user name and password and click the Sign Up button.
2. Your Email Confirmation is Sent
My email confirmation arrived in seconds.
Click the link in the email and you're now a member of the video center.
3. Describe Your Video
4. Browse for Your Video
Locate the video on your local drive and click upload.
5. Your Video is Uploaded and Prepared
Your video is converted on the fly to a small Flash file and placed in the Video Center.
6. You Receive an Email when Your Video is Ready
7. View Your Video Online
This short video of a K-Tron S60 single screw volumetric feeder can now be seen in the Video Center.
Don Dunningtion
Green Packaging - The Challenges Ahead |
February 15, 2007 |
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Posted by Joseph Taylor at 08:35 PM | Comments (0) |
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The 2007 year, which is the forty-fourth that Australian Institute of Packaging [AIP] has been conducting monthly meetings, was a joint venture with the Society of Plastics Engineers [SPE] where Robin Tuckerman FAIP brought five speakers to the podium to discuss plastics for Green Packaging. (Photo: From left to right; Gerry, Skye, Peter, Katherine and John.)
The theme for the meeting came about from a survey of members last year when over 40% of respondents asked for sessions dealing with environmental issues.
An alternate title could have been Form, File and Spiel for such was the discipline that facilitator Robin had injected or blown into his confreres who presented. The keynote address given by Peter Bury from PACIA was entitled “Using Degradable Plastics in Australia-Product Stewardship Guide and Commitment”. Justification for the existence of PACIA [and for that matter any industry lobby] was explained as “being able to do what an individual could not” particularly in the minefield of Government interface.
Bakelite the first plastic is a brand named material based on the thermosetting phenol formaldehyde resin polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride, developed in 1907–1909 by Dr. Leo Baekeland. Peter explained that plastics really came about because the world was running out of elephants which were slaughtered for the ivory in their tusks. One kilogram of plastic is equal to the tusks of 15000 elephants, so right off plastics were good for the environment; not to mention the elephants.
But nearly a hundred years on “plastics are well postioned but have an image problem” according to Bury. He sheeted this directly to manufacturers who use false and misleading information that confuses consumers. But The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission [ACCC] is “red hot” on manufacturers who claim that a plastic is degradable or compostable but can not show evidence in support. ACCC uses Australain Standard 14021 [2002] as the verifaicator for claims made about a product.
So the message for the Industry support body is “have evidence before you make the claim” then evidence and more evidence. Information is contained on PACIA web site.
John Nickless from Innovia Films [Asia Pacific] Pty Ltd explained that compostable plastic packaging is a high demand by consumers and that the same consumers are purchasers of organic food stuffs. Organics are growing by 25% per annum and consumers will pay a premium for the product and the packaging. One overseas supermarket chain has over 500 organic product lines on sale.
Overseas Governments are commiting industry to degradable plastics by the imposition of penalties and John Nickeless flags that “governments are governments” and Australia will follow.
Innova’s leader in degradable plastics is Nature Flex ® which is manufactured from cropped timber and is 95% modified cellulose that degrades naturally or can be composted. The approach to remove only the tops of trees and let them coppice is sound as there is less environmental impact in many ways.
The company’s degradable film is now the preferred choice for sanitary products that end up in sewerage systems. Non degradable plastics used before the conversion to Nature Flex® needed much attention at the treatment plant as the sanitary products arrived downstream intact and had to given special attention to get the degradable material free for processing.
Gerry Kleisterlee of Pro-Pac Packaging [Aust] Pty Ltd discussed her company’s environmental thrust and told us that “the basic material is Nature’s Recipe”. The products under scrutiny were flowable and non-flowable void fillers that were introduced in 1996 to compete with polystyrene products.
Other Green Packs from Pro-Pac are Air Pac ® a pillow formed to cushion products in transit and Pad Loc ® that is a replacement for foam-in-place void fillers.
Skye Reilly of Sancell Pty Ltd completed the introduction of new products and also had a focus on protective packaging. She completed a quick environmentally awareness survey using the audience which demonstrated that recycling and reuse may well be lower on the totem than spin doctors would have us believe.
Sancell’s environmental policy underpins what products they take to the market place. The product produced is EnviroBubble ® that is made from 100% LDPE with Totally Degradable plastic additives [TDPA] blended into the resin during production.
These additives trigger a process of oxidative degradation when heated by the Ultra Violet in sunlight and heat, then moisture, micro-organisms and oxygen cause the product to be degraded in twelve months.
Half of all Sancell’s customers have changed over to EnviroBubble ® giving a growth in sales of 16.5% in the last twelve months and a higher number in profitability.
Marketed as EnviroProtecta Bags the white quilted bags are becoming ubiquitous and are more “eye candy” than the traditional paper padded mailers and small parcel packages.
Katherine Dean, Research Scientist at CSIRO who is project leader for that organization’s Green Materials and Systems research was enjoined to excite the technologists who attended and spoke about Biopolymer Research.
The thrust of research is to look at all petrochemical based materials and find replacements in biodegradable stock. The search goes on amongst starches from wheat and corn, polylactic acid [PLA] and biodegradable oil based materials.
Plantic Technologies® a leader in biodegradable plastic was conceived at CSIRO and today the emphasis is on nano-technology and microbiological methods that may increase the time of degradation that can be built into the life cycle.
Futurists can contemplate Katherine Dean’s contention that “there will come a time when bio polymers will be cheaper than petrochemical polymers”
A question time followed mainly focused on the issues of contamination of the waste stream and how to educate the public. That is a whole other subject that remained unanswered as the audience participated in thanking the guest speakers.
Considerations for “later” can be posed from the meeting:
- Oil is being used quicker than it is produced but petrochemical plastics can be recycled many times.
- Do all materials now in use have a biopolymer alternative?
- Water is needed to grow the raw materials for biopolymers and it is in its infancy. Will we have enough water?
- Biodegradable materials by their very nature vanish and have to be started anew.
Contact Information
Australian Institute of Packaging
www.aipack.com.au
Society of Plastics Engineers
www.4spe.org
PACIA
www.pacia.org.au
Innovia Films [Asia Pacific] Pty Ltd
www.innoviafilms.com
Pro-Pac Packaging [Aust] Pty Ltd
www.pro-pac.com.au
Sancell Pty Ltd
www.sancell.com.au
CSIRO
http://www.cmit.csiro.au/home/contacts/
Written by:
Michael B Halley FAIP
Australian Institute of Packaging
Web site: www.aipack.com.au
When is fail-safe really safe? |
February 08, 2007 |
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Posted by Joe Lewis at 10:57 AM | Comments (0) |
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You might have damage to the vessel, like clogging a bin vent or even physical damage to the vessel or vents or dust collectors, not to mention the loss of your valuable material. The point is that the cost to you when a high level control or indicator fails is something you want to avoid.
Typically fail-safe point level sensors are employed to help eliminate these situations. Click for more and look for the February 7, 2007 post, "When is fail-safe really safe?"
Joe Lewis
Vice President
Monitor Technologies
Reversible Hammermills can be such a grind |
February 07, 2007 |
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Posted by Fred Schaffer at 05:21 PM | Comments (0) |
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Hammermills, whether reversible or non-reversible, must be checked for several reasons. For example, if the coal grind goes out of spec, then vary the cage adjustment. Our hammermill cages allow adjustments to compensate for normal wear by changing the distance between the cage bars and the hammers. If that fails to correct the problem, then open up the hammermill and check the hammers and cage parts for wear.
Plugging: this sticky problem won't go away on its own
Extremely sticky feed materials can result in plugging, and if that occurs, a temporary solution is to adjust the cages back and/or cut back the feed rate. Continued running often clears the problem if the sticky material was transient in nature: if not, a washdown may be necessary.
When a bearing's hot, you're not
As with other crusher models, hammermills may also exhibit uneven wear as well as hot-running bearings. The most common solution is to adjust the feed system to correct the wear problem, and to check the bearings as described above. Both of those remedies are far less time consuming and expensive than the fixes that will otherwise be needed if they are neglected.
Reversible Hammermill Examples
Pennsylvania Reversible Hammermill, Model SXCB. This model is widely used to crush Powder River Basin (PRB) coal from Wyoming as well as bituminous coals. Because PRB coal has such a low sulfur content, power generating plants tend to prefer it over coals that might be nearer to their generating station but which would require more expensive emissions control systems.
Since the hammers in a crusher are subjected to such punishing wear, Pennsylvania offers a hard-faced, forged-steel version which extends hammer life by as much as five times.
Many crusher models employ screen bars against which the hammers crush the coal. Pennsylvania developed these special profile bars to be self-cleaning to prevent clogging. The hard-faced version shown here increases the service life over ordinary bars by many times.
"Handbook of Crushing" available as free download
Learn more about the care and feeding of crushers with this his valuable, 42-page handbook, available for download (requires registration) from the Penn Crusher website. It provides a review of mechanical reduction methods and crusher selection criteria, with lots of illustrations, it also includes explanations and tables for the measurement of crushing resistance and relative abrasiveness.
A separate chart of abrasiveness indices lists over fifty minerals along with their numerical value and their site of origin. Yet another chart provides physical characteristics of numerous materials and minerals, coded according to abrasiveness, flowability and special characteristics. A typical product screen analysis report is also reproduced. Additional topics include power requirements for crushers, closed circuit crushing, crusher hammer types and other useful information, including an overview of all Pennsylvania crushers, sizers, breakers and feeders.
Where to find help to keep your crushers crushing
This is the last of three articles on crusher maintenance. I hope you've found these articles illuminating and perhaps you've gained some valuable tips that will save you time and money in the long run. See my previous article on the warning signs to listen for in a jaw crusher, and my first article on how to insure a longer life for ring hammers (granulators).
If you would like Pennsylvania Crusher to review your crusher maintenance procedures, or if you encounter service issues, please call me at 610-544-7200, or send your E-mail request to fschaffer@penncrusher.com. For more crusher information, visit Pennsylvania Crusher's website at www.penncrusher.com. You can learn more about our crusher services, parts and remanufacturing.
Fred Schaffer
Service Advisor
Pennsylvania Crusher
New : Level Measurement Blog |
February 05, 2007 |
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Posted by Joe Lewis at 12:05 PM | Comments (0) |
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Technical industry blogs are not rampant, but there are some. Why does this matter to you? Because good blogs are a great source of technical data, application information and solutions to problems that you might have. They can be, and typically are, more informative and less promotional than the typical manufacturers' website.
What is a blog? Well, you're reading a post at one of the leading industry blogs for powder and bulk solids. A blog is typically a journal of postings on a certain subject. Industry blogs tend to deal with technology, applications, technical product detail and problem solving rather than promotion.
In regards to instrumentation, and level sensors in particular, there have not been any blogs to speak of. That has changed. Just launched is the Level Measurement blog. This blog discusses technology, applications and problem/solutions regarding level measurement. It also has a post that will help you get the most out of RSS feeds and syndication by using a newsreader for your favorite blogs.
Take a look and don't be afraid to post a comment. No one is going to give you a hard sell as the primary mission of this, or any good blog, is to help you.
Joe Lewis
Vice President
Monitor Technologies LLC
