Clear Edge Boosts Productivity at A Major Pigment Producer

INORGANIC PIGMENTS PRODUCED MORE EFFICIENTLY WITH CLEAR EDGE FILTER PRESS CLOTHS FEATURING AZURTEX™ AND COREFLO™

With fierce competition and high demand in the pigments market, all producers are looking for opportunities to lower operational cost and increase their output. Clear Edge were invited to assist a major European inorganic pigments company to debottleneck their process, releasing the factory’s full potential.

THE CHALLENGE

The site’s goal was to improve the efficiency of the de-watering of pigment slurry.

With pigment de-watering filtration being a process critical step and a bottleneck for this plant, a granular understanding of the problem was needed. Inefficiency was found to have three route causes;

  1. Pigment being lost in filtrate through the stitch holes of the barrel-neck filter press cloths required re-filtration of filtrate at the end of each campaign.
  2. Cake moistures often too high causing longer filtration cycles slowing down production and potentially increasing drying costs.
  3. Filter press cloths blinding prematurely, inhibiting product flow and requiring early cloth replacement, hence poor filter availability and increased cloth consumption.

THE SOLUTION

Clear Edge combined two of our proprietary filtration technologies to address the challenges faced by this site.

Azurtex™ is a microporous impregnated filtration media designed to capture fine particles beyond the capabilities of conventional fabrics, whilst inhibiting solids ingress, avoiding blinding.

Coreflo™ is a thermoplastic neck for barrel-neck style filter press cloths. As Coreflo™ is welded rather than stitched to the filter media, there are no needle-holes through which solids can bypass the media.

THE RESULTS

The inorganic pigment producer increased production capacity, reducedcost per tonne and has been able to introduce a new product line.

Coreflo™ eliminated the loss of product through the neck assembly of the press cloths resulting in a solid retention of nearly 100%. Since production is run in large campaigns re-filtration of the filtrate is avoided and saves up to 3 weeks of valuable production time and associated energy cost.

Azurtex™ filter media prevented cloth blinding, resulting in the target moisture being achieved consistently, increasing productivity and avoiding elevated drying cost.

Blinding inhibition also hugely improved the operational life of filter press cloths from an average of 12 months to an average of 18 months with a constant product flow throughout the life time, reducing the quantity of cloths purchased and the labour cost associated with cloth replacement.

The inorganic pigment manufacturer saw an increase in the productivity and a decrease in cost when moving to Filter Press Cloths with Azurtex™ and Coreflo™ from Clear Edge.

Superior fine particle size retention with the combination of Azurtex™ and Coreflo™ allowed the company to introduce a new yellow pigment quality to their range, that could previously not be processed with conventional filter media.

Site safety was enhanced too as personnel are now exposed to less risk with the highly reduced number of filter press cloth changes.