Improve quality.
Avoid rework.
Boost productivity.
Cut costs.

 

WHY USE AIR KNIFE SYSTEMS?

  • Improve quality – manufacture stain-free, streak-free plastic and rubber products.
  • Improve efficiency – reduce reworking, save time and money.
  • Speed up production – increase output, ship faster.
  • Save energy – cut costs, reduce your carbon footprint

WhY USE Air Knife Systems?

  • Improve quality – manufacture stain-free, streak-free plastic and rubber products.
  • Improve efficiency – reduce reworking, save time and money.
  • Speed up production – increase output, ship faster.
  • Save energy – cut costs, reduce your carbon footprint

Advanced Air Knives For Plastics And Rubber Manufacturing

Get more from your production lines – and save energy. Specify advanced air knives that dry plastics and rubber efficiently with a stain-free, streak-free finish. No matter how challenging your products are to manufacture. Applications include:

  • drying after quenching and setting
  • cooling plastic film
  • deionising before painting or lacquering to create the perfect finish.

Only a truly even blanket of clean air guarantees the perfect finish your customers demand. True laminar airflow with no turbulence and no contamination. Precision air balance – with no high spots that waste energy, no low spots that underperform.

Optimum entrainment ensures your air knives employ as much free, unpowered air as possible – cutting costs, improving efficiency and delivering a real return on investment. Decades of experience enable us to forecast very accurately what your new air knife system will achieve, how much it will save you and how soon you will achieve payback.

Specify customised solutions that integrate with your production lines: advanced air knives tailored to your precise requirements. Each unique solution includes standard off-the-shelf components – reducing capital costs and giving you faster payback.

So you get the best of both worlds. Custom air knives at sensible prices.

ACI Air Knife Systems for Rubber Extrusion
ACI Air Knife Systems for Automation Plastic Pannels

Customised Air Knife Systems For The Automotive Industry

Vehicle bumpers and other plastic panels, sections and components have always been difficult to dry. Chasing moisture out of a latticework of nooks and crannies requires a precision-configured array of air blades, nozzles and goose-necked reciprocators – all working in perfect harmony.

But that’s only half the story. It’s one thing to bombard a moving product with salvos of air jets. It’s quite another to do so in a way that reduces inefficient air turbulence, saves energy and cuts costs. And all this technology must be neatly integrated into a compact space in a tightly controlled production line.

That is where ACI’s decades of technical expertise come to the fore – providing demonstrable benefits and savings that deliver easily predictable and quantifiable ROI wins.

Deionisation, Static Elimination

Clean, blower-driven air is the perfect way to neutralise charges and remove static from plastics, rubber and other non-conductive materials such as glass or paper.

Adding an anti-static bar to an air knife creates an electrical field that separates the air molecules by polarity. Positive and negative ions are blown into the work area, neutralising any static charge on the product. This prevents static from attracting dust or any other contamination that would compromise finish quality.

Car plants and other manufacturers employ this deionisation technology in the early stages of the finishing process. Stage two – drying – involves a second air knife system comprising moving nozzles, fixed nozzles and air blades.

Cooling Plastic Film With Ring Air Knives

Plastic bag and film manufacturers depend on ACI’s ring air knives to cool high-density polyethylene that has been blown upwards into an extrusion tube .

Hot polymer film is passed through a ring-shaped plenum which delivers an evenly balanced circle of clean air. ACI ring air knives are typically manufactured from 304 stainless steel up to 750 mm in diameter.

ACI Dionisation Air Knife prior to lacquering
ACI - Plastic Insulation of cables
ACI - Plastic & Rubber Industry

Drying Cables And Wire After Plastic Insulation Is Applied

Extruding plastic insulation over cables and wires inevitably involves cooling the products in cold water – but drying them afterwards can be very challenging. Failure to do so correctly can result in issues with labelling and spark tests.

Compressed air dryers waste huge amounts of energy, resulting in excessive bills that undermine profits. Far from being a ‘free’ resource, compressed air is very expensive because of the large amount of energy needed to create high-pressure jets of air.

Low-pressure blower-driven air knives are far more efficient – saving up to 90% compared with compressed air systems. They are also much safer than compressed air, reducing health and safety risks.

Some manufacturers attempt to solve moisture issues on their production line by rigging up DIY blower systems fabricated from pipes or ducting. These are usually inefficient – again underperforming and/or wasting energy because the airflow is turbulent, unbalanced and lacks sufficient entrainment.

ACI’s LINE-Dry System delivers a precisely controlled airflow – cutting energy costs and reducing noise. These fully self-contained units concentrate two powerful air jets against the flow of the cable. These opposing jets blast the wire from top and bottom – breaking the surface tension of the water. Soft-edged rubber baffles catch and contain any spray to prevent any health and safety hazards.

Larger diameter cable, tubing and extrusions can be handled by ACI’s Profile Dryer.

Dry Extrusion Profiles – Fast Efficient Dryer, Low Operating Costs

ACI’s Profile Dryer removes moisture from hard-to-dry EPDM rubber, silicone seals, profiles, tubes, pipes, bars and asymmetric plastic extrusions quickly and easily:

  • increase production line speeds – boost output
  • superior performance – improve product quality
  • rapid spray-free drying – up to 100 metres/minute
  • low energy consumption – low running costs, significant savings
  • dry extrusions up to 65 mm in diameter
  • compact unit (1,300 mm) – takes up less space, fits most production lines
  • custom-configurable drying head to suit your exact requirements.

ACI’s Profile Dryer users vacuum technology – not compressed air – to remove moisture. So it is cleaner, safer and much cheaper to run than compressed air systems.

Stainless steel construction and ceramic rollers eliminate the risk of corrosion. A separator drains water as it reaches a certain level. The motor is rated IP 66 for ingress protection.

 

ACI Profile Drying System

Drying Small Plastic And Rubber Components

Drying large volumes of small components quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively requires specialist equipment configured to your exact requirements.

ACI’s unique spiral drum component dryer delivers clean, blower-powered air with optimum performance and energy efficiency: it can dry parts in under 30 seconds. The blower-powered air, stainless steel drum, and drip trays are so clean and hygienic that this system is also used to dry food products.

The rotating helical drum is manufactured from perforated stainless steel and is mounted horizontally. Plastic and rubber components enter via a chute before being blown and agitated as they travel down the drum – emerging dry at the other end. Stainless steel drip trays catch any moisture. Safety guards are available on request.

This compact unit is safe and simple to integrate into a production line. Its low power requirements and choice of blowers help you to minimise energy consumption – you’ll never have to specify more power than you need.

Download More Information On Air Knives

You will find information about:

  • how air knives are 90% more cost-effective than compressed air systems – as well as being quieter, cleaner and safer
  • the ROI, productivity, quality and operational benefits of air knives
  • materials, construction and nozzle options
  • how we learn your precise requirements before providing a detailed quotation
  • technical drawings of standard ACI air knives (custom designs are also available)
  • reciprocating air nozzles (including technical drawings)
  • blower-powered de-ionisation air knives (and how they work)
  • acoustic enclosures and support frameworks
  • modular ducting and flexible hose
  • turnkey conveyor systems with integrated air knives
  • cable and wire drying systems (with technical drawings)
  • spiral drum dryers for small/light components (with technical drawings).
ACI Air Knife System for cable extrusion
BLOG – Compare Advanced ACI Blower-Driven Air Knives vs Costly Compressed Air.

You will discover:

  • the downsides of compressed air
  • the payback analysis – how much money you could save.

Why ACI?

50+ years of technical expertise
and experience.

World-class solutions –
US (Maine) subsidiary. Distributors,
agents and partners in 40+ countries.

Performance guaranteed – all standard and custom systems will perform as tested and specified. Guaranteed results and savings.

Advanced quieter air blowers
that take up less space.

UK designed and
manufactured equipment.

Thousands of happy customers
across the world.

How ACI helps businesses like yours…

SEE ACI’S PROFILE DRYER IN ACTION

See how fast it dries rubber and plastic extrusion.
Watch this 43-second video…

ACI Drying System for Plastic & Rubber Profiles

ACI’s ADVANCED PROFILE DRYER

How ACI’s Profile Dryer maintains extrusion quality while removing moisture.  Read more…

Talk to us about your requirements

 

We will ensure you get the best drying solution for your system by providing industry-leading advice and guidance.

Call our team at +44 (0)1297 630960 or email us below.