AkzoNobel reduces energy consumption

Process engineers at the facility have determined that the new Ekato agitators can provide reductions in energy consumption, while at the same time increasing the overall throughput and production capacity. With a goal to reduce maintenance costs and meet the needs of increasing volumes the new agitators have delivered a reduction in energy consumption of over 60% and batch cycle time by 20 minutes. With this level of improvement the payback on the investments is under three years. The site manufactures water-based coatings that protect the food and beverage contents from the metal can, as well as, the metal can from the contents. Engineering manager Scott Love says: "The growth of the business has required that we identify cost -effective improvements to lower batch times and reduce the number of breakdowns to achieve a threefold increase in volume. We also had a higher level of maintenance, notably due to a build up of material around the agitator shaft and heating coils, reducing heat transfer capability which ultimately increases the process times and requires cleaning every three months." Love approached Ekato to upgrade the existing reactor with its new Viscoprop Impeller and electric motor technology to take advantage of the improved efficiency by using a smaller 15kW motor that still achieves better mixing performance than the previous 75kW unit. The electrically driven agitator is more energy efficient and more easily controlled, allowing it to be turned off when not in use. When the electrical drive is not powering the agitator it consumes no energy, where as the hydraulic drive unit consumes the same amount of energy at all times. This has lead to a reduction in the amount of electricity used to agitate the mixing vessel by over 6%, generating CO2 savings of 369 tonnes per year which was equivalent to 9% of the site emissions. AkzoNobel's Birmingham site manager Greg Methven says: "This is a step toward achieving our sustainability ambitions for 2015, and beyond; which we are well on the way with."