Eliminate open hoses for clean-up and sanitation. Use spray guns instead.Did you know that you can reduce water consumption by as much as 50% by using low-pressure spray guns instead of open hoses? Ensuring that water is “on” only when needed can cut water use in half. It’s a small change that can yield big savings.
Here is just one example:
A food processor was using 15 open hoses for sanitation. The hoses were in use eight hours per day, five days per week, 50 weeks per year. 1,892 kiloliters of water were used daily.
Using hoses equipped with spray guns, water use decreased by 30% per hose. Water use dropped 65,411 litres by per day.
The processor saved $30,240 annually on water and disposal costs. The cost of the spray guns was recouped after approximately 30 days of use.
See our Spray Guns page for more information.
Everyone is looking for ideas that offer quick payback while improving efficiency and quality. And thatÕs exactly what youÕll find in our White Paper Series: improvements you can make in your spraying operations that can save your company tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of a year.
All of our White Papers are available for download free of charge and without obligation. Take advantage of our educational resources and to learn how to optimize your spray operations and lower operating costs.
Please review the short summaries below and if the paper is applicable to your operations, just click the link and download. ThatÕs all there is to it. Once youÕve read the papers of interest, please contact us if you have questions or need assistance with implementation.
Before you say “nothing,” consider these facts:
Most customers are shocked to find out the cost of using nozzles that are just 10% worn often ranges from $50,000 to $100,000 per year. If an application uses a lot of nozzles, requires high flow rates or if wear is greater than 10%, the costs escalate rapidly.
Review the charts that follow with your system flow in mind to get a feel for just how wasteful using worn nozzles can be in your operations. (Larger views will appear when you click on the chart graphics.)
Click on the following links to view graphs illustrating the cost of nozzles that are 15% worn.
Inspecting and maintaining your nozzles on a regular basis will help identify wear and extend service life. However, wear will invariably occur over time and the only solution is to replace your nozzles. The challenging part is determining when to replace them. Here are a few guidelines:
Are worn nozzles affecting product or process quality? If so, replace nozzles as soon as any wear is evident.
Is water conservation a priority? If so, replace nozzles as soon as wear is evident.
How much are you spending by continuing to use worn nozzles? That is, what are the additional costs for water, chemicals, electricity and wastewater disposal?
Is precise spray performance important to your overall process? If so, you may want to set pre-determined dates for nozzle replacement. Many companies change spray nozzles during annual or semi-annual maintenance shutdowns.
The best way to pre-empt a significant profit drain due to nozzle wear is to take action before it becomes problematic. You may end up saving tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
More often than not, wear is not visible. Despite looking the same, the nozzle on the right is 15% worn. Even when in use, the spray patterns from these nozzles will look very similar and a visual inspection is unlikely to reveal which nozzle is spraying 15% over capacity.
So, how do you determine if your nozzles are worn? Monitoring flow rate and pressure is probably the easiest evaluation technique for most users.
Check flow rate if using centrifugal pumps: Monitor flow meter readings or collect and measure the flow from the spray nozzle for a given period of time at a specified pressure. Compare these readings to the flow rates listed in the manufacturer’s catalog or compare them to readings from new, unused spray nozzles.
Check pressure if using positive displacement pumps: Monitor the liquid line pressure for decreases. The flow rate will remain constant.
More Ways to Detect Nozzle Wear
The devices that supply liquid and air to nozzles are critical to good performance. Spray manifolds prevent bends in tubing that can restrict flow, protect nozzles from debris, speed installation and maintenance and more. Manifolds are readily available and ordering from the same source that provides your nozzles eliminates integration and coordination problems and ensures optimum spray performance.
For more information see Bulletin 607, Air Atomizing Spray Manifolds
Spray controllers can monitor and automatically adjust all system components to compensate for changes in conditions that can affect the efficiency of the operation.
Conditions that can be monitored include:
Depending on the operation, other conditions can also be monitored. If the controller cannot maintain the desired system performance, alarms are activated to prompt human intervention and/or shut down the system before quality suffers.
Strainers help prevent nozzle wear and damage and should be used in most applications but especially those that are using recirculated water. There are dozens of types that may be suitable for your operation. T-style strainers are among the most popular and are available in many styles:
Spray Injectors: Critical but Often Overlooked Components
At the heart of any spray application is the spray nozzle. But equally important in a spray system is the spray injector (also known as a spray lance or quill) that delivers the liquid and/or gas to the spray nozzle.
Like spray nozzles, spray injecto rs must also meet exacting standards to ensure optimal performance and to prevent costly inefficiencies. Relatively simple operations can often use a standard injector. Applications like gas conditioning, chemical injection, secondary fuel injection, emergency quench, and lime slurry injection often require a custom solution. Here’s why:
If you have a sophisticated application, give some thought to the equipment upstream of your spray nozzles. You may find that an integrated solution – spray nozzles and injectors – can help improve spray performance.
Achieve Effective, Efficient Gas Cooling with an AutoJet® Gas Conditioning System
For paper mills, steel mills, power plants, waste incineration facilities and cement plants with gases to cool or condition, spray technology remains the most effective solution. Cooling prior to baghouse or ESP, NOx control and SO2 removal are areas where evaporative cooling via spray technology is ideally suited.
In recent years, evaporative cooling utilizing air atomization has become the preferred solution for a variety of reasons:
The patented three-stage atomization process used by FloMax® air atomizing nozzles is extremely air efficient and is the primary reason why it is the preferred nozzle for gas conditioning
Solutions that Have Worked for Your Peers and That May Help You Boost Performance, Too
Efficient Gas Cooling Improves Production
Small droplet sizes produced by FloMax air atomizing nozzles allow greater volumes of gas to be cooled without wetting and maintenance headaches.
Induct Gas Cooling Prior to ESP
High-efficiency FloMax air atomizing nozzles reduce gas temperature and correct opacity to improve ESP performance.
PulsaJet® Automatic Spray Nozzles Provide Unmatched Precision for the Most Demanding Coating, Sealing, and Marking Operations
Using an AutoJet® spray controller in conjunction with PulsaJet nozzles will maximize cycle speed, enable Pulse Width Modulated (PWM) flow control, allow spray operation validation and provide other advanced control options.
PulsaJet nozzles can help increase productivity and lower costs in many ways:
Standard Air Atomizing Spray Manifolds Help Ensure Proper Nozzle Placement and Optimal Performance
We offer a wide range of spray manifolds to simplify nozzle positioning, installation, and maintenance, and contribute to trouble-free operation. Options include:
Manifolds are available in a variety of lengths, nozzle spacing options, mounting options and are suitable for use with several types of air atomizing nozzles.
Custom Lances / Injectors
Not every application can be satisfied by a standard spray header or lance. Special requirements are quite common and can range from special materials/coatings, unique connections, larger size/length or special shapes due to physical limitations.
When a standard lance or header is not available, there are basically three options: 1) build it yourself, 2) find a local fabricator to implement your design, or, 3) have the manufacturer of your spray nozzle design and fabricate a custom solution.
The last option is usually your best option for a variety of reasons. Obtaining a complete solution — spray nozzles and headers or lances — from a single source ensures optimal nozzle performance. It also ensures your headers or lances are designed by a company with expertise in spray technology. And, you have the convenience of working with a single supplier.
Not all nozzle manufacturers offer this service. But, custom fabrication is one of our core offerings. We have the engineers, manufacturing/testing facilities and certifications required for almost every project, along with a proven track record.
In addition to high quality headers and lances, you can expect quality project management from us as well. For projects requiring thorough documentation, we develop a written project plan, handle coordination between all the departments in your plant as needed and provide a comprehensive Data Book so you have all the documentation you need.
So the next time your application requires a new way to connect the nozzle to the spray system, be sure to give us a call. Given our extensive experience, it is likely we’ve completed a project similar to yours. This translates into design and fabrication time savings as well as cost savings. We’re confident you will find our custom design and fabrication services to be a high quality, high value solution.
Visit our Custom Lances/Injectors page for more information.
Historically, control of spray nozzles in most manufacturing plants has been a manual task or handled via a PLC. However, new options from AutoJet® Technologies, our turnkey systems division, have changed the way many plants approach spray system control.
Our new dedicated spray controllers save on programming time with pre-defined, pre-tested control modules that are application specific. Spray controllers are able to optimize the performance of air atomizing nozzles and automatic spray nozzles because they provide very fast response times — up to 10 times faster than PLCs — and have nozzle performance data built in.
If product quality is affected by spraying, or high-cost fluids are being sprayed, the benefits of precision spray control can be significant. The following spray control strategies may help you increase efficiency and improve product quality:
Visit our Automated spray control systems page for more information on how automated spray control systems often pay for themselves quickly through productivity gains and lowering of costs such as labor and production consumables.
Spray Analysis and Research Services, a service of Spraying Systems Co., was founded to help customers find new ways to spray, solve challenging application problems and optimize spray performance. Through our services, we help customers:
Our innovative problem solving takes place in our fully-equipped spray laboratories. The largest in the world, our labs are filled with specialized instrumentation for characterizing sprays. If we can’t meet your requirements using a standard solution, our engineers will develop a custom solution. We handle it all — design, prototyping, fabrication and testing to validate performance.
Even if you don’t have an immediate need, you may benefit from an initial meeting. We’ll take a look at your current spraying operation, discuss new applications and offer recommendations/ideas. You and your colleagues may prefer to take advantage of our educational presentation on the latest advancements in spray technology or one of our customized “lunch and learn” sessions. There’s no obligation with any of these options. Consider it a way to learn more about spray technology and ways you may be able to improve spray performance in your application.
Visit www.spray.co.za for more information on spray nozzles and nozzle applications.
If your application requires the use of one or two air knives, you may discover our new WindJet low flow air knives can help you improve quality and reduce your energy costs. These nozzles provide a uniform air flow across the entire length of the air knife for fast drying and blow-off using minimal air.
There are no moving parts, so our WindJet low flow air knives are maintenance free. Plus, noise level is reduced — 69 dBA in most applications. These air knives are ideal for conveyor cleaning, food drying, environmental separation, parts drying/cooling, scrap removal and more.
Visit the WindJet Air Knife page for more information.
Spray technology is advancing quickly. If you’ve been using the same nozzle type for an extended period of time, you may find newer designs available that offer significant benefits such as reduced air or liquid consumption, longer wear life, minimal clogging and more. Here are two of our recently introduced nozzles that may help optimize your spray application.
New Automatic Air Atomizing Spray Nozzle for High-Speed Operation
Our new AA29JAUCO electrically-actuated automatic spray nozzle is specifically designed for high speed, short duration spraying. It can operate as continuous duty or as a high-speed gun cycling up to 1,000 times per minute. Unmatched in versatility and speed, the AA29JAUCO is ideal for food processing, marking, sealing, coating and lubrication applications.
Stainless steel construction, with wetted parts made of stainless steel, Ryton®, TEFLON®, Viton® or PEEK™, ensures long-lasting durability and crisp/clean shut-off. Plus, the AA29JAUCO features a built-in stainless steel clean-out needle that automatically activates during each spray cycle for maximum protection against clogging and our new “threadless” Drip Free™ air atomizing spray set-ups for ease of installation and positive shut-off. The maximum fluid orifice for the AA29JAUCO is 0.08″ (2.0 mm) and has a maximum flow rate of 44.7 gph (169 l/h).
Visit the Automatic Spray Nozzles page for an unmatched selection of Automatic Spray Nozzles and Control Options.
In many applications, the use of anti-bearding spray set-ups can help reduce clogging. These set-ups change the air current around the spray tip to prevent drops from falling back on the nozzle and causing build-up. In some cases, users can run their spray operations up to 20-times longer without shutting down.
The addition of a heat jacket can ensure trouble-free atomization of hard-to-spray liquids such as waxes, adhesives, starches and syrups and minimize maintenance due to clogging. When spraying an extremely difficult solution such as chocolate, an automated system may be required.
Heated automated systems use closed-loop temperature control to ensure liquid temperature is ensured all the way from the tank to the target. The pressure tank and liquid and air lines are usually jacketed or heated to ensure consistent flow rates and clog-free operation.
Dedicated spray controllers can automatically adjust spray performance to compensate for changes in operating conditions. This minimizes clogging in many applications. However, when spray nozzles do clog, it is detected immediately and operators are notified to minimize scrap and lost production time.
A spray system that is not working optimally can very quickly cost your operation tens – even hundreds – of thousands of dollars annually. When nozzles become partially blocked, spraying efficiency is compromised and process and/or product quality typically deteriorate. Scrap, maintenance time and lost production can also quickly escalate.
Simple But Effective Ways to Prevent Clogging
Proactive maintenance is the best way to prevent clogging problems from occurring but even well maintained systems can experience problems from time to time. Most spray systems can be efficiently maintained in good operating condition by manually cleaning nozzles at regular intervals. But a word of caution – only use materials that are much softer than the nozzle orifice surface. It is very easy to damage the critical orifice shape and/or size and produce distorted spray patterns or excess flow. When nozzles become clogged and manual cleaning with the appropriate tools doesn’t solve the problem, try soaking the orifice in a non-corrosive cleaning chemical to soften or dissolve the clogging substance.
Most applications can benefit from adding strainers, which are an easy and economical way to minimize clogging. Strainers, including spray nozzles with built-in strainers, trap larger particles and prevent debris from entering the spray nozzle orifice or vane.
Popular and effective strainer types include:
Integral strainers can often be ordered as part of the nozzle itself and are available in a variety of mesh sizes and materials for standard and quick-connect spray nozzles.
T-strainers and simplex/duplex basket strainers are another option. Most allow a system to be quickly shut down for strainer basket cleaning or change-out. Some can be cleaned on the fly without shutting down the pipeline.
The most critical components in any spray system are the spray nozzles. But that doesn’t make the other components in your system insignificant. In fact, without them, you won’t be able to operate your spray nozzles. Yet, these components are often overlooked.
Let’s take a closer look at one of these components – the spray lance (also referred to as an injector). Spray lances must typically meet as many exacting specifications as spray nozzles and the performance of your nozzles is somewhat dependent on how the solution to be sprayed is delivered to the nozzles. It makes sense to think about spray lances early in the process – when you’re specifying your spray nozzles.
Using a single supplier for your spray nozzles and spray lances also makes sense. Not only do you enjoy the convenience of working with a single supplier, you’ll have the assurance of an integrated system – manufactured by the leading spray technology company.
We offer both standard and custom lances. Since many applications require something other than off-the-shelf solutions, we’ve become experts in the design, manufacture and testing of lances for demanding environments and challenging physical spaces.
The vast majority of lances we produce require:
Recently completed projects for gas conditioning, chemical injection, emergency quench and power generation applications include:
If you’re working on a new application or upgrading a current one, now is the time to contact us and explore spray lance options. Starting early is the best way to ensure optimal performance of all spray system components and eliminate the hassle of coordinating multiple suppliers.
