Industrial Processing Equipment News

In a centrifugal pump, the creation of vapor bubbles can wreak havoc on your flow rate. Vapor bubbles are created when the pressure drops between the pump's suction and the eye of the impeller. When the bubbles collapse, cavitation results. Cavitation can cause excessive vibration, damaging bearings or seals. Find out the common causes of cavitation and how to get it under control.

A new probe-type in situ oxygen analyzer is designed to measure the residual oxygen remaining in the flue gases from any combustion process. The analyzer can be used in boilers, kilns, process heaters, and reheat furnaces. The analyzer's electronics require much less power to operate, reducing the heat generated and extending the life of the device.

One company has just installed two alternative fuel boiler feed systems, one in a newsprint mill in Korea and another in a power generating plant in Virginia. Instead of coal or wood, the new feed system supplies an alternative fuel to the boiler, including woody biomass or waste products such as bark, Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) pellets, DIP sludge, and plastics.

Pulsed plasma ion nitriding allows metallurgical engineers to manipulate the metal surface of stainless steels by accurately controlling gas chemistry, offering more flexibility than conventional gas or salt-bath nitriding that use anhydrous ammonia and cyanide/cyanate salts. The pulsed plasma technique presents precise amounts of hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon to the metal's surface, ensuring that the steel meets performance characteristics.

A new feeder for food manufacturers can be used as a volumetric feeder or can be integrated into a weighing frame for accurately dosing powders and pigments for recipes. The feeder also features an easy-to-remove assembly that can be rapidly stripped for cleaning, making the system ideal for demanding food applications that have frequent product changeovers.

Proper granulation techniques are key to producing the most common pharmaceutical form: tablets. To create properly mixed and dosed tablets, pharma manufacturers focus a lot of attention of methods of granulation control, from particle bonding mechanisms to the factors that can affect proper granulation. This review article also presents several emerging technologies for monitoring the mix, such as piezo-electric acoustic emission sensors and focused beam reflectance measurement.

Government regulations on air pollution are tightening, and some manufacturers are responding with creative ways to capture and filter smoke and fumes from their welding or brazing operations before they mix with the ambient air. Point-of-source capture and filtration systems come in a wide variety of configurations, accommodating small shops with standalone units and large processors with fully integrated lines.

Product changeovers can slow down any processing line, especially when swapping out or cleaning equipment is a laborious ordeal. A coatings manufacturer installed a new sieve system that sped up the changeover process, preventing problems with cross-contamination. Unlike their older, traditional sieve technology, the new system could be disassembled by one operator without any tools, and reassembled and realigned just as quickly.

The Cleantech Group connects investors, enterprises, entrepreneurs, service providers, and economic development agencies to help foster and promote use of clean technologies. The group recently held a forum in San Francisco where policy makers, scientists, and corporate leaders collaborated to share market data and predictions and innovations in clean transportation, energy, and construction.

A group of scientists used gel permeation chromatography, high-performance liquid chromatography, and mass spectrometry to unlock some of the clues to the characteristic taste of Gouda cheese. It seems that the best Gouda is an old Gouda, one that has been able to ripen for at least 44 weeks. And, the complex, compelling taste has been traced to a series of six peptides, which can now be used for flavoring other dairy foods.

Pickens Picking a Fight?

Is T. Boone Pickens, famous oilman and newly-minted proponent of wind power, the right man to inspire Congress to work together on energy independence?