PU Panel Manufacturers Report Chemical Cost Reductions of Up to 10%
OMS Group is helping sandwich panel manufacturers save a huge amount of money per year by installing more energy- and chemical-efficient technology.
Manufacturers’ of flexible-faced, insulated roofing panels report a 10% reduction in chemical costs and significant maintenance and energy savings after upgrading existing production lines to new high-speed OMS laminators, said Mark Clark, general manager of Polyurethane Process Industries - exclusive distributor of OMS equipment in the United States.
Several US and European panel manufactures replaced their old mix heads and chain-driven laminators with new OMS high-pressure mix heads, high-pressure heat exchangers, and gear-driven double-belt conveyors. The whole OMS laminator is fully enclosed to inhibit heat loss during the curing process. The conveyor is also “chainless”, which means significantly lower maintenance cost and less friction, so OMS can use smaller drive motors that use less energy.
Other manufacturers of continuous flexible- and rigid-faced sandwich panels should realize similar savings with the same OMS mix head and laminator upgrades, which include:
1) A lay-down area where self-cleaning, recirculating mix heads distribute multi-streams of reacting foam onto a flexible or rigid substrate. These high-pressure mix heads, which have pneumatically controlled nozzles in closed-loop, improve chemical utilization by delivering better control over chemical temperature; pouring pressure; dynamic blending of polyol, catalyst and blowing agent percentage; impingement mixing; and foam distribution.
2) High-pressure heat exchangers near the mix heads for more accurate control chemical temperature where it is needed.
3) A double-belt conveyor that precisely maintains the required dimension of the finished panel as it transports the substrate and foam core through the curing process. Automatic, adjustment of the upper belt position precisely maintains or varies panel thickness without shutting down the line to insert calibration spacers. Hot air circulates within the conveyor frame, which is enclosed within a thermally insulated tunnel to conserve heat and energy.
This technology is standard on OMS continuous panel lines. Any panel manufacturer should be able to realize substantial chemical, maintenance and energy savings with this equipment. The new mix heads and high-pressure heat exchangers typically pay for themselves in a year by reducing the amount of scrap and chemicals used.
OMS also uses high-pressure temperature control, pneumatic pressure control, high-pressure recycling and self-cleaning mix heads, all of which help produce higher quality foam and less scrap.
High-pressure heat exchangers installed close to the final mix point produces more uniform chemical reactivity, reducing over-pack and under-fill of the final product. High-pressure recycling can easily eliminate three to eight reject boards during start-up just by allowing the line to start with pre-determined blowing agent and catalyst levels.
Panel manufacturers can cut costs even more with automatic adjustment of panel thickness, which is standard on the OMS laminator. Mechanical thickness adjustment has a major benefit over manual adjustment when it comes to reducing chemical usage, downtime for change-overs and thickness errors due to incorrect spacer placement.
Panel laminating systems that require an operator to stop the line to insert calibration spacers typically provide a minimum thickness adjustment of 1 mm, or the size of the smallest spacer. This can waste a significant amount of chemical because panels made to minimum specifications can vary by 0,03 to 0,8 mm.
Motorized jackscrews on the OMS double-belt conveyor automatically adjust and maintain the panel thickness to the minimum specifications. With automated thickness, in theory, you could start the day producing minimum thickness product and never stop the machine until that product is finished Not only can this save a huge amount of money in chemicals but product thickness changes can be made in few seconds, saving from three to six minutes for each product change.
Automatic thickness adjustment also eliminates “spacer errors”; during normal operation, an operator will inadvertently place the wrong set of spacers in one more positions. Each time this happens, there is an additional shutdown and reject product. Missing and misplaced spacers also can cause significant damage to the laminator structure, resulting even substantial repair costs and downtime.
There are other advantages built into OMS panel production technology. Dynamic mixing with high-pressure recycle allows you to change formula for product thickness and it provides a better polyol/pentane mix, reducing the possibility of emulsion separation.
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