Bulk Bag Filling - Packaging Dusty Process By-Product

Ingredients Handled
Silica

Control and Metering's Customer
A large corporation which imposes exacting environmental standards on its facilities was faced with the problem of handling large quantities of silica dust produced as a bi-product of its main process. The silica dust was extracted away from the process and needed to be collected and stored.

Customer's Reason For Using Bulk Bags
Collection to bulk bags was decided upon as an easy, clean means of producing a transportable waste package. Different filtration stations would produce varying amounts of waste dust, so different bulk bag heights were anticipated.

Control and Metering Application Solution
Fifty-four dust collection filter-receivers were to collect the waste product and the system had to provide an inexpensive and relatively labour-free solution to handling the collected waste.

Control and Metering adapted their base Model A bulk bag filler to provide a machine which offered adjustable hanger arms to accommodate bags of different heights.

Application Challenges and Their Solution
Since the product being collected was a waste product, the company was not concerned with the accuracy of the fill. However, it needed to know when the bags were nearly full so that they could be taken away and replaced with an empty one as affordably and as easily as possible.

Control and Metering designed a one point load cell system which would shut off the filling at a preset weight signal level. Another innovation which facilitated easy filled bag removal by hand pallet truck was the engineering of a pivoting pallet ramp at the bottom of each filling machine.

With 54 machines to manage, perhaps the most valuable element in the solution was the control component of the dust collection system. Each filling machine was controlled by a PLC which was integrated to the company’s main control system. The ability to interact with the main plant system reduced the number of dedicated operators and improved the management of the system. Indeed, all 54 machines are rigged and unloaded by a single operator and a hand pallet truck.

Why The Customer Chose Control and Metering
The 54 cost-effective filling machines perform very well and the system is running so smoothly that the company is now planning to extend the entire system to include recycling their waste product to a user of silica . An additional 48 units have been ordered. The company has achieved its environmental goals by introducing a simple, effective, yet affordable bulk bag filling system to its filtration stations and now has the opportunity to make money from the packaged material.

For further information on Packaging process by-product contact contact us at info@spiroflow.com or call 1-704-246-0900.