Technology

The next time you sit down for dinner, take a good look at your food. There’s a very good chance compressed air played an essential role in preparing your meal for consumption.

The NPE2009 international plastics showcase was held June 22-26 in Chicago’s McCormick Place. While attendance was down from NPE2006, the preliminary total of visitor registrations numbered 44,000. Sustainability and energy efficiency was a prominent topic in the booths of exhibitors. Manufacturers of compressed air and injection molding equipment had many developments with Sustainability to show the visitors to NPE2009.

Compressed Air Best Practices spoke with Peter Kyriacopoulos. Mr. Kyriacopoulos is the General Manager/VP USA Region East for Atlas Copco Compressors.

The snack food facility is running with two normally separated compressed air production systems: the main plant system and the nitrogen system.

Cleanliness is often considered to be a virtue. In the beverage packaging industry, however, cleanliness is an absolute necessity.

Most printing facilities use vacuum for one process or another.  I recently spoke with Jesse Krivolavek, (a vacuum system efficiency specialist with IVS, Inc.) about his recent adventures in the world of printing.

This commercial printing facility is located in the Northeastern part of the U.S.  Like most facilities, the plant has seen many changes over the years.

The primary objective of this case study is to illustrate the process in which industrial facilities can qualify for energy incentives on projects that reduce the energy usage of their compressed air system.

Compressed Air Best Practices interviewed Paul Lukitsch.  Mr. Lukitsch is the Regional Facilities & Energy Manager for Millipore Corporation.

Resin drying is a critical step in the manufacturing process of injection molding, extrusion molding and stretch blow molding.  Compressed air resin dryers are one of the most commonly used dryers in the plastics molding industry. Recent advancements in compressed air membrane-type resin dryers, have reduced the associated energy costs significantly.