PLASTRATUM LTD
Meet Plastratum Ltd at Surface World Live
The Chemical Engineering designers at Plastratum Ltd , the fastest growing Electro Plating and Metal Finishing plant supplier in the UK , were commissioned to Design , Manufacture , Install and Commission an integral Fully Automatic barrel and Jig Zinc and Zinc / Nickel plating and chemical processing plant with in-barrel drying .
The plant was supplied with two drying stations , one for the jigged components and one with an internal vectored construction around 60 % of the barrel circumference allowing pressurised hot air to permeate through the larger hole sizes allowable for the products . Full drying of the components and the barrel unit was achieved within the cycle time of the plant . This removed the requirement for additional product transfer usually attributed to off line centrifugal component drying , making the entire operation more efficient with the additional handling cost reductions .
At the customers request the plant was initially designed for electrical heating , but we were asked to also install additional heating to an existing automatic spray phosphating plant . It became cost effective to consider Thermal Fluid heating for both applications . Plastratum were able to advise the customer that a gas fired Thermal Fluid boiler system , which initally showed an increase in project capital cost , was amortised against the cost of electricity with a pay-back in as little as eighteen months .
Some over capacity in the Thermal Fluid boiler enabled the provision of heated domestic hot water for the factory which had been supplied previously and successfully to another customer , again an overall cost saving benefit .
The benefit of Thermal Fluid boiler systems is that maintenance is only required once per year , thus saving production down time and expensive blow down and water treatment costs as would normally be required for medium pressure hot water and steam systems which also require frequent insurance inspection and progressive corrosion considerations .
The Zinc and Zinc / Nickel plating and Chemical Processing plant was fitted with Differential Volumetric Lid Technology which reduces the operational fume extraction requirements by 70 % with a major reduction in the heat exhausted from the factory and enabling the benefit of much reduced factory heating costs .
The fume extraction discharge is directed through a horizontal chemical elimination scrubber system with continuous chemical dosing and discharge to the effluent treatment system .
The plant is complete with an off line continuously rated zinc dissolution system based on an artesian operational principle for servicing and maintaining the zinc ion concentration for the Zinc / Nickel plating bath .
The Zinc / Nickel plating bath incorporated profiled sheet steel mesh anodes around the barrel unit which enhanced the efficiency and plated material distribution and also enhanced an efficient solution flow throughout the barrel .
As the company had a large roof area and low mains water pressure , Plastratum designed , manufactured , installed and commissioned a rain water harvesting system which saved the customer incoming water costs and provided consistent water pressure to the facility . This fed into the rinse water recirculation and effluent treatment plant . This technology saved the customer even more operational costs .
The rain water harvested was filtered and exposed to UV radiation to prevent biological
contamination of the ion exchange filters . The water was treated using separate , duty / standby cation and anion exchange resins to produce deionised water at a conductivity of < 20 ยต Scm-1 . This provided excellent rinse quality and allowed for rinse water recirculation , reprocessing the water through the ion exchange equipment , reducing by approximately 80 % the discharge to foul sewer . As required , the ion exchange filters were regenerated using small amounts of cid and alkali chemicals , with the standby ion exchange unit automatically taking the operational role to ensure no loss of rinse water supply . The regenerant waste was then treated using a small total loss system to within parameters suitable for foul sewer discharge , providing complete control over the rinse water and effluent treatment processes .
All of the plants were controlled by the Plastratum S-100 software system with SCADA that was interfaced with the company main server . This transferred production information to the plant controller for the purpose of selecting the most advantageous high production output using Plastratums Random Loading Software . This operates in such a way that the plant does not need to be emptied of jigged work before barrel production can commence and vice versa . Again a cost saving and an enhanced production benefit for the customer .
Please meet with us on Stand E13 at Surface World Live which will enable us to discuss how we can help and impress you .
Telephone : 0121 314 1191 Email : e-mail mike @ plastratum . com Visit : www . plastratum . com
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