Efficient and Reliable Conveying and Feeding

At NPE 2018 (May 7–11, 2018, Orlan­do, Flori­da / USA), Cope­ri­on and Cope­ri­on K‑Tron will present a vari­ety of feed­ing, con­vey­ing, bulk mate­r­i­al han­dling com­po­nents and solu­tions for plas­tics pro­cess­ing at their Booth W729 in West Hall Lev­el 2. Debut­ing for the first time will be a USA-man­u­fac­tured Cope­ri­on ZRD rotary valve from Sali­na, KS, that will sig­nif­i­cant­ly short­en deliv­ery times for bulk solids indus­try cus­tomers and the new MIX-A-LOT bulk mate­r­i­al mix­er for high-speed, gen­tle and cost-effi­cient homog­e­niza­tion of fed mate­r­i­al. Also on dis­play will be a Cope­ri­on K‑Tron T35 vol­u­met­ric twin screw feed­er, shown with a Cope­ri­on STS 35 Mc¹¹ extrud­er. Fur­ther exhibits include a sim­ple but clever elec­tron­ic solu­tion for accu­rate and reli­able pres­sure com­pen­sa­tion for loss-in-weight feed­ers, as well as a Cope­ri­on K‑Tron Smart Flow Meter for reli­able meter­ing, reg­is­ter­ing or mon­i­tor­ing of bulk mate­r­i­al flows. Vis­i­tors at NPE can also see first­hand a trans­par­ent glass pipe sys­tem demon­strat­ing var­i­ous modes of pneu­mat­ic con­vey­ing and a recir­cu­lat­ing feed­ing and con­vey­ing sys­tem fea­tur­ing the Cope­ri­on K‑Tron Bulk Solids Pump feed­er com­bined with a 2400 Series vac­u­um sequenc­ing receiv­er. Last­ly, Cope­ri­on and Cope­ri­on K‑Tron will offer atten­dees a cut­ting-edge vir­tu­al real­i­ty expe­ri­ence and aug­ment­ed real­i­ty appli­ca­tions of their equip­ment and sys­tems. So as you can imag­ine, it will be well worth a vis­it to Booth W729 and see what all Cope­ri­on and Cope­ri­on K‑Tron has to offer and talk to the experts at the show.

Reduced Delivery Times with USA-Manufactured ZRD Rotary Valve

In order to sig­nif­i­cant­ly short­en deliv­ery times for cus­tomers of the Amer­i­c­as mar­ket, Cope­ri­on K‑Tron locat­ed in Sali­na, KS, USA has start­ed the US pro­duc­tion of Ger­man-designed Cope­ri­on rotary valves type ZRD in Sali­na. Local pro­duc­tion of the valves, along with a con­sid­er­able invest­ment of stocked inven­to­ry, will allow Cope­ri­on to deliv­er and repair valves for the Amer­i­c­as mar­ket with sig­nif­i­cant­ly short­er deliv­ery times. Stan­dard grey cast iron and stain­less steel ZRD rotary valves will now be avail­able to cus­tomers with­in 4 to 6 weeks.
The Cope­ri­on ZRD rotary valve is spe­cial­ly designed for plas­tics, min­er­al, chem­i­cal and food appli­ca­tions. The valve is engi­neered for heavy-duty indus­tri­al ser­vice with pres­sure dif­fer­en­tials up to 21 psi(g) [1.5 bar(g)] and tem­per­a­tures up to 212°F [100°C]; high­er tem­per­a­ture options are avail­able. The ZRD is often used as a dis­charg­ing and meter­ing valve for con­vey­ing prod­ucts in pow­der and gran­u­lar form.
An exten­sive range of sizes is avail­able, with large through­puts rang­ing from 500 to 400,000 + lb per hour (sub­ject to bulk den­si­ty and appli­ca­tion). The valves have a pres­sure-surge-proof, (pres­sure shock) rat­ing of 145 psi(g) [10 bar(g)], and are suit­able for iso­la­tion accord­ing to NFPA stan­dards (for select sizes up to 12 inch). The ZRD comes stan­dard with air purged seals com­plete­ly mount­ed with plas­tic or stain­less steel tub­ing, sole­noid and fil­ter reg­u­la­tor with gauge. An alter­nate seal option includes the pop­u­lar T3 PTFE and quad ring assem­blies, which elim­i­nate the need for air purge. The ZRD comes with a sealed-for-life out­board bear­ing arrange­ment that can be sup­plied with and with­out air purge seals (sep­a­rat­ed from the prod­uct zone) by way of a ded­i­cat­ed relief openings.

Cost-Efficient, High-Speed and Gentle Mixing

The new mechan­i­cal bulk mate­r­i­al mix­er MIX-A-LOT ensures par­tic­u­lar­ly effi­cient, high-speed and gen­tle homog­e­niza­tion of fed mate­r­i­al. The read­i­ly acces­si­ble and easy to clean mix­er is avail­able in three sizes for through­put rates up to 5 t/h, there is also an ATEX ver­sion. The sur­face of the mix­ing cham­ber can be elec­tro pol­ished. The com­bi­na­tion of an out­stand­ing mix­ing effect and extreme­ly short mix­ing time is due to the opti­mized design of the mix­ing rotor. Its low cir­cum­fer­en­tial veloc­i­ties and the opti­mum design of the gap to the hous­ing, per­mit gen­tle han­dling with­out par­ti­cle destruc­tion or heat­ing of the prod­uct. The large inspec­tion door on the front of the MIX-A-LOT pro­vides easy access to the entire process cham­ber. An addi­tion­al open­ing at the dis­charge flap also facil­i­tates inspec­tion and clean­ing of this section.

T35 Feeder Dispensing for Masterbatch Extrusion

The T35 twin screw feed­er offers vol­u­met­ric feed­ing of free flow­ing to very poor flow­ing pow­ders (e.g., lumpy, moist or bridge build­ing mate­ri­als) as well as fibers, flakes and oth­er bulk mate­ri­als. The T35 is a twin screw feed­er with inter­change­able feed­ing tools. All parts in con­tact with the mate­r­i­al being fed are stain­less steel, and feed­ing equip­ment is easy to dis­as­sem­ble. A hor­i­zon­tal agi­ta­tor gen­tly moves the bulk mate­r­i­al to the large throat and then into the screws. This equip­ment con­forms to CE stan­dards regard­ing EMC and safe­ty. The K2-MV-T35 feed­er comes with a Cope­ri­on K‑Tron Smart­Con­nex^™ con­trol sys­tem, which allows indi­vid­ual or mul­ti-com­po­nent con­trol. Rate range (depend­ing on mate­r­i­al) is 0.04 to 88 ft³/h (1.25 to 2,500 dm³/h).

SFMeter for Reliable Metering, Registering or Monitoring of Bulk Material Flows

In high rate appli­ca­tions, the Smart Flow Meter (SFM) pro­vides high accu­ra­cy feed­ing, at feed rates of up to 7,000 ft³/h (200,000 dm³/h), com­bined with gen­tle han­dling. In addi­tion to a low­er pur­chase cost than a large loss-in-weight feed­er, the SFM offers low­er main­te­nance costs and reduced headroom.
The SFM is often employed in PE resin pel­letiz­ing process­es, where it accu­rate­ly and gen­tly feeds the main com­po­nent, PE pow­der, into the pel­letiz­ing extrud­er. Typ­i­cal par­ti­cle size is approx­i­mate­ly 0.02 mm up to 10 mm. The SFM is suit­able for free-flow­ing bulk mate­ri­als such as pow­ders, gran­ules, chips or fibers.

EPC System for High-Accuracy

Cope­ri­on K‑Tron will present a unique Elec­tron­ic Pres­sure Com­pen­sa­tion (EPC) sys­tem for their high-accu­ra­cy loss-in-weight feed­ers. The main advan­tages of the new sys­tem include improved accu­ra­cy and reli­a­bil­i­ty as well as low­er ini­tial cost and eas­i­er instal­la­tion com­pared to tra­di­tion­al mechan­i­cal pres­sure com­pen­sa­tion sys­tems. Cope­ri­on K‑Tron has devel­oped a clever but sim­ple elec­tron­ic solu­tion for accu­rate and steady pres­sure com­pen­sa­tion in feed­er hop­pers and out­lets. The mod­u­lar design incor­po­rates pres­sure sen­sors and elec­tron­ics tai­lored to inter­act smooth­ly with Cope­ri­on K‑Tron’s KCM feed­er con­trol sys­tem. Retro­fitting options for exist­ing feed­ers are avail­able. EPC can be installed on a major­i­ty of Cope­ri­on K‑Tron gravi­met­ric feed­ers in almost any appli­ca­tion and all industries.

Modes of Pneumatic Conveying Demonstration

A pneu­mat­ic con­vey­ing demon­stra­tion sys­tem fea­tur­ing trans­par­ent glass pipe will be a high­light to the booth, which will allow atten­dees to see first­hand dif­fer­ent modes of con­vey­ing bulk sol­id mate­r­i­al. The unit will be con­struct­ed to allow guests to observe par­ti­cle flow through this unique and one-of-a-kind sys­tem. See for your­self how dif­fer­ent con­vey­ing meth­ods are espe­cial­ly suit­able for pre­mixed mate­ri­als, mate­ri­als with high bulk den­si­ty, mate­ri­als which are abra­sive, fri­able, or tend to segregate.

Recirculating Conveying System with Bulk Solids Pump Feeder Demonstration

The unique Cope­ri­on K‑Tron Bulk Solids Pump (BSP) feed­er will be fea­tured in this work­ing recir­cu­lat­ing sys­tem, togeth­er with a 2415 receiv­er. The run­ning unit will demon­strate unique char­ac­ter­is­tics of the BSP feed­er and the ver­sa­til­i­ty of the Series 2400 vac­u­um sequenc­ing receivers.
The BSP feed­er line has been specif­i­cal­ly designed and engi­neered to pro­vide gen­tle, pre­cise feed­ing of free-flow­ing pel­lets, gran­ules, and fri­able bulk mate­ri­als. BSP feed­ers do not use the usu­al screws/augers, belts or vibra­to­ry trays to con­vey the mate­r­i­al. They uti­lize pos­i­tive dis­place­ment action to feed free flow­ing mate­ri­als with high­est accu­ra­cy, offer­ing uni­form dis­charge, con­sis­tent vol­ume and gen­tle han­dling. BSP feed­ers have ver­ti­cal rotat­ing discs that cre­ate feed­ing ducts. Mate­r­i­al moves smooth­ly from stor­age hop­per to dis­charge out­let through a “prod­uct lock-up zone,” achiev­ing true lin­ear mass flow. With only one mov­ing part, these com­pact feed­ers are cleaned in sec­onds, mak­ing them ide­al for appli­ca­tions with fre­quent mate­r­i­al changes. Three sizes are avail­able, offer­ing feed rates of 0.07 to 1.2 ft³/h [2 to 6,700 dm³/h]. On dis­play will be the mod­el K‑ML-BSP-150‑S.
The Series 2400 vac­u­um receivers pro­vide a high capac­i­ty sequenc­ing sys­tem pri­mar­i­ly used on mul­ti­ple des­ti­na­tion appli­ca­tions where larg­er con­vey­ing rates or long dis­tances are required.  They are designed to high qual­i­ty stan­dards for pneu­mat­i­cal­ly con­vey­ing pow­der, pel­let and gran­u­lar mate­ri­als for the bulk mate­ri­als han­dling indus­tries. Con­vey­ing rates range from 720 to 15,000 lb/h (327 to 6,804 kg/h). On dis­play will be the 2415 Pow­der Receiver.