Eaton Filters Curb Water Consumption, Feed Sustainability

Eaton Filters Curb Water Consumption, Feed Sustainability

The state of California was having a beef with a major meat packing company regarding the amount of water it was using. Perhaps more so than in any other area of the U.S., water is the lifeblood for social and economic wellbeing in this essentially arid state. Because of that, numerous legislative initiatives have been  implemented over the years to  better conserve water covering everything from the installation of more efficient sprinklers, the planting of draught-tolerant landscaping, to the upgrading of some 10 million public and private toilets.

Challenge
Flushed with the need to do its part to help curb water usage, the meat packing company sought recommendations from Eaton’s Filtration business on how to more efficiently reuse and recycle water at one of its facilities in central California. Engineers at the company and Eaton representatives eventually identified one area of the processing – known as a hide-on wash station – where water usage was especially high. Recycling the rinse water, they concluded, from the hide-on stations would significantly reduce consumption. However, recycling the rinse water required an especially robust filtration system due to the extremely harsh operating conditions at a hide-on station, where the filters had to dealwith high quantities of dirt, hair, fats and other impurities. High flow rates further complicated the formidable task.

Solution
The puzzle was soon solved with the installation of three Eaton DCF-1600 filters with twin pneumatic actuators. “We were asked to make a recommendation on the conditions we saw during a site visit,” says David Peterson regional sales manager for Eaton.

“Based on what I witnessed, no other filter was capable of handling the severe operating environment.”

Ideal for a variety of food applications, Eaton DCF-1600 filters are designed for the rigors of processing highly viscous, abrasive, sticky or otherwise hard to process substances. The filters, which operate at low differential pressure, easily accommodate a wide range of flow and retention requirements.

Additional features include:

• Elimination or reduction of disposable filter bags and cartridges for reduced operator handling, inventory costs and landfill waste.
• Reduction in product loss and more thorough containment purge in a highly concentrated waste stream.
• Reduction or elimination of operator intervention for safer operation.
• Virtually maintenance free with nearly 100 percent uptime.
• Compact design and lower capital cost to fit most installations.
• Stainless steel screens ranging from 15-micron slots to ¼-inch perforations to handle a wide range of filtration needs.
• Available with most popular cleaning discs.
The dual actuators on the DCF-1600 filters isolate the actuation mechanism from the filtrate with a bridged system resulting in a long operating life in just about any challenging condition.

Results

“The systems have been operating perfectly from the day they were installed,” says Peterson, “and the savings from water conservation have been huge.”
Because of the conservation, the company should also be safe if future restrictions develop for incoming water, which have occurred in California in the past due to ongoing water shortages. Meanwhile, discharged waste water has been effectively minimized with the reuse of recycled water.
Visitors from sister facilities have observed the DCF-1600 filters operating in California and have been impressed enough to investigate ordering their own installations, adds Peterson.

“Water reuse and recycling in the food processing industry is a recurring challenge,” says Peterson. “Thankfully, there are many areas where water can be filtered and reused with the right filtration system, including incoming water from wells, as well as water used in wash stations, cooling towers, storage tank cleaning and more.”

Less disposal of waste water also brings about important benefits to the environment, he notes.

Due to the flood of benefits still occurring today, accolades continue to pour in from all interested parties on the new beefy filters from Eaton.

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Soap Maker Bubbling Over on Eaton Filters

Eaton’s DCF-800 Mechanically Cleaned Filter has helped this soap maker achieve a final product that consistently meets purity goals and has allowed for a more productive and cost-efficient manufacturing process.

Problem: Impurities in the soap due to an outdated filtering process
Solution: Eaton’s DCF-800 Mechanically Cleaned Filter
Results: The final product consistently meets purity goals and the manufacturing process is more productive and cost-efficient

Background
While maybe not quite as frightening as the famous Alfred Hitchcock shower scene, just imagine the shock of stepping into a hot shower, unwrapping your favorite bar of soap, and discovering that it’s already dirty. It can happen. That’s because soap contains glycerin, which brings with it important moisturizing properties. During the manufacturing process, glycerin is heated and added to the soap formulation before it goes to final production. However, the heating needs to be precise with little margin for error. When it is not heated properly, the soap can turn brown and even form brown specks that are small but still very much noticeable, hardly the 99 and 44/100% pure that a good soap needs to be.

Challenge
For one of the world’s largest suppliers of bar, detergent and body soaps, meeting that lofty goal is imperative to success. Supplying virtually every type of soap made, the company on any given day will see some 25 different brands of soap rolling down its production line. Relying on an outdated heating and filtering process, the company often had to reroute soap back into the assembly line to remove the brown haze and specks caused by the improperly heated glycerin to ensure that quality objectives were always achieved.  The rerouting was necessary, but was inefficient, expensive and time-consuming.  Additional labor was also required. While the final product was eventually meeting purity goals, the soap giant very much wanted to clean up the process.

Solution
In doing so, they turned to Eaton Filtration and installed a DOFF 800 filtration system for a 90-day trial run. The DOFF 800, a forerunner of the newer DCF­800 filters, is often used for trials.
Both perform a self-cleaning action by mechanically scraping collected debris from the filter screen with a disc that moves up and down the screen, parallel to the liquid flow. Collected debris is then automatically purged from the collection chamber at the bottom of the filter.  This self-cleaning action is performed without halting production and provides the highest quality filtering under continuous demand. Because the screen is cleaned continuously, a consistently high flow rate is maintained.  Uninterrupted filtering by the DCF also helps ensure consistent temperatures— a feature essential to meeting quality objectives.

Result
Before the 90-day test was even completed, the soap company was already washing its hands of the brown mess and has since ordered two new Eaton DCF-800 filters.  “Removal of the glycerin impurities was very successful,” reports Bruce Law, regional sales manager for Eaton’s filtration business. “The test unit delivered everything that we said it would.”  As a result, Law believes the costly rerouting of soap will soon be virtually eliminated.  “It’s still too early to gather a measurable return on investment,” adds Law, “but based on the results of the trial, the number of bars of soap that the company produces, and the cost to rework an out of spec product, it strikes me that the payback is going to be pretty quick.”

DCF-800 – One actuator delivers simple, reliable operation with water-like liquids. Ideal where a low initial investment is a key Our unique circular cleaning disc design (MCF design shown) ensures intimate contact with the screen to thoroughly and uniformly clean the media

 
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Eaton Filters are Can Do Solutions – Customer Success Story

Metal Food Packaging : Eaton Filters are Can Do Solutions

“Eaton has been right there with us and I have been very impressed with that.”  Quality Control Manager

Problem: Manufacturing facility was relying on an antiquated paper filtering process, which was expensive, hard-tomaintain, and time consuming.Eaton’s MCF 824-Series Mechanically Cleaned Filter.
Results: An easy to use filter that practically eliminated paper costs of approximately $60,000 per year, realized maintenance and labor savings, increased operator safety, and reduced landfill waste.

Background
The largest supplier of metal food containers in North America prides itself on quality,customer support, implementing leading edge technologies,sustainable business practices,and lowering costs whenever possible. Partnering with suppliers that can best help meet those goals is another primary objective. With annual sales in excess of a billion dollars, the company’s containers are used primarily by processors and packagers for foods such as soup, vegetables,fruit, meat, tomato-based products, coffee, seafood, adult nutritional drinks, pet food, and other miscellaneous food products. A wealth of well-known manufacturer brands, large and small, rely on the company’s cans for the consistent delivery of  high-quality, high-grade consumable goods.

Challenge
The cutting and shaping of metals is an important part ofthe manufacturing process. According to the quality control manager at one of the company’s 28 manufacturing facilities whose process requires the use of lubricants to keep the metal cool so that it can beshaped properly and precisely. The lubricant, or coolant, also picks up metal shavings, oils,and dirt that occur naturally. A filtering process is required to clean the coolant and return it to the manufacturing line.  For years, the facility was relying on an antiquated paper filtering process, which was expensive,hard-to-maintain, and time-consuming.Paper costs alone were running about $5000 per month, says the quality control manager. “On top of that, the changing of the paper filters would take the operator about a half-hour to 45 minutes of his time to cut offthe paper with a razor knife,carry it down stairs and put it on a pallet, dispose of it, and mopup the mess,” he adds.

Solution
However, that’s all changed now thanks to the installation of new Eaton MCF 824-Series mechanically cleaned filtration systems.The system features a cylindrical stainless steel housing that contains a cleanable, permanent filter screen. Unfiltered liquids flow from the top down and from the inside of the media toward the outside. Impurities are deposited on the interior surface of the filter screen, and the clean fluid exits through an outlet. When the media requires cleaning, a spring loaded cleaning disc travels top to bottom inside the filter media,directing collected contaminants downward, where they are concentrated in the purging chamber for easy expulsion. The whole cleaning process occurs while the filter remains in service, eliminating or reducing the use of disposable filter bags,decreasing operator handling,lowering inventory costs, and decreasing waste disposal. The innovative, magnetically coupled driving technology that moves the cleaning disc – without the need for shaft or drive external seals – adds additional appeal tothe unique design.

Result
The quality control manager reports significant financial gains by practically eliminating paper costs. The old systems are still used, but only as a backup when the Eaton MCF 824 units are undergoing scheduled maintenance.“We have been very satisfied,”adds the manager. ”We’ve been running the systems for four years and Eaton has been very helpful with us in making the original change over and later updating the equipment with new parts over the years.“They even came up with abetter way of cleaning the MCF824-Series filters. So we were able to extend the life of the filters even further. We originally had to change the filters every four or five days. Now we can stretch it out to once every eight days. “Eaton has been right there with us and I have been very impressed with that.” Not to be overlooked, he notes,are the additional gains being realized in maintenance savings,labor savings, and disposal savings – which deems that the responsible management of the environment plays a significant role in achieving success.“Now everything is pretty much automatic,” notes the manager. “It’s a much better system in a variety of ways.”He is confident other company manufacturing facilities around the country could also benefit with the Eaton setup, which has effectively turned the filtering process from a can of worms into a can of corn.

 

Read more customer success stories from Eaton’s Filtration Business.

Eaton’s Newest Customer Success Story : Paint Manufacturer

The Eaton DCF-1600 mechanically cleaned filter was installed to remedy the problems associated with large particles and foreign fibers. The quality of finished paints improved while the company reduced process costs, and gained a safer and cleaner work environment.

Read the full success story today. Click to Read

Using Your Cooling Tower Loop to Cut Waste and Costs by Eaton Filtration

Using Your Cooling Tower Loop to Cut Waste and Costs

A manufacturer of plastic grooming products approached Eaton’s filtration business about difficulties they were having while recycling mold cooling water through a cooling tower. Specifically, the cooling water was picking up airborne particulate matter in the process — requiring frequent blowdowns, maintenance and adding costly downtime on the molding machines. Traditionally, engineers have opted for disposable media filters because of their lower initial cost.

While initial cost may be lower for small batch operations, the same is not necessarily true for continuous operations. The reason for this is that a completely redundant filtration system is needed to maintain production — including piping, valves, supports, and service connections. Obviously, this is not an insignificant expense by any means. To remove this particulate, the company installed an Eaton AFR Tubular Backwashing Pressure Filter. With this type of filter system, the media is cleaned and regenerated while the unit remains on-line. This means a simple single-piping arrangement, minimal valving, and fewer connections – for a lower total system cost and reduced waste.

Since this installation, the company has eliminated costly downtime and reduced their waste.  What’s more, controlling suspended solids by filtration rather than blowdown substantially reduced their water use. And because the filter cleans itself only when necessary, treatment chemicals and waste disposal costs are minimized. 

For more information on the Tubular Backwash filter or other filtration solutions please contact an Eaton filtration sales represenative today.

Eaton improves biodiesel loading system | Success Story

Quality requirements are rising fast in the alternative fuel market and the final product has to conform to tighter than ever standards. A biodiesel manufacturer originally installed a vertical duplex cartridge unit to filter biodiesel from a storage tank into trucks and rail cars and turned to Eaton’s filtration business to improve efficiency and reduce costs. Read the success story on how Eaton’s MAXILINE industrial filter housing has helped this alternative fuel processor meet and exceed their filtration and financial goals.

Baggage-Free Eaton Strainers Make Perfect Landing at JFK – Success Story

John F. Kennedy International Airport

“The Eaton strainer has been operating at JFK airport for the last 15 years without maintenance or attention. The ruggedness and durability has been great.”

Christopher Gogola
Maintenance Manager, JFK Energy Center

Background

Located on Jamaica Bay in the southeastern section of Queens County, N.Y., John F. Kennedy International Airport has more than 30 miles of runway surface and occupies some 4,930 acres of land. Better known as JFK, the airport has seven operating airplane terminals and roughly 125 aircraft gates.

More than 90 airlines operate out of JFK, which also serves as the base of operations for JetBlue Airways and the international gateway hub for American Airlines and Delta Air Lines. The airport is the fourth largest hub for American and the sixth largest hub for Delta.

JFK handles close to 60 million yearly passengers, making it the world’s 12th busiest airport by that measure. The airport also serves as the work site for some 35,000 employees.

Challenges

All those passengers and employees are kept warm in the winter and cool in the summer thanks to a heating, ventilation and air conditioning plant with a cooling tower located in the central terminal area. The tower must operate efficiently 24 hours a day seven days a week through all weather conditions.

To ensure this critical function is ready, the tower needs a strainer system that can not only handle the full load of 25,000 gallons per minute running through the tower, but also be maintenancefree and automated. Because of space constraints, the strainers also needed to be the primary source for removing dirt and other impurities.

Solution

JFK eventually chose Eaton for the job and selected a Model 2596 36-inch fabricated, automatic, self-cleaning strainer. Designed for the continuous removal of entrained solids from liquids, the automatic backwash strainer ensures maintenancefree operation of the system.

“This strainer has handled the full load of our water continuously for years for the supply of power to all of JFK airport,” says Christopher Gogola, maintenance manager for the JFK Energy Center. “It is critical to us to be sure there is no interruption in the power supply to the facility. Eaton has been a key component in this endeavor.”

With an automatic control system constantly monitoring the strainer operation, cleaning is accomplished by an integral backwash system in which a small portion of the screen element is isolated and cleaned by reverse flow. The remaining screen area continues to strain thereby providing uninterrupted water flow. The efficient design requires only a small amount of the strained liquid to carry away and dispose of the debris from the strainer.

Results

Fifteen years ago, when the strainers were initially installed, Eaton’s engineers believed they had the precise design needed at JFK. That turned out to be a very good call, as the Eaton strainers are still delivering continuous, uninterrupted, maintenance-free service.

Gogola agrees, and noted, “The Eaton strainer has been operating at JFK airport for the last 15 years without maintenance or attention. The ruggedness and durability has been great.”

During that 15-year run, JFK has, of course, experienced delays and cancellations, unfortunately associated with any airport. Safely putting people and aircraft into the air and onto the ground practically dictates complications… especially so at one of the world’s busiest facilities.

Fortunately, all of those same people dealing with the delays and cancellations remained cool, warm and comfortable thanks, to a large degree, to the uninterrupted service of Eaton strainers

Eaton Filtration Success Story for United States Tissue Manufacturer

Tissue Manufacturer Replaced TWO Basket Strainers with ONE Self-Cleaning Filter

This Resulted in Greater Profits!

A United States Tissue Manufacturer was using two mesh basket strainerswithin their Paper Processing line. The strainers preceded their glue application nozzles, and their main responsibility was to filter out the large glue particles before they migrated into the spray nozzle path. If the particles were not removed, the spray nozzles integrity would be compromised which was very expensive to fix. The basket strainers limitations required constant operator attention (24/7) due to the need to manually clean the unit. This took precious time out of the employee’s day to exclusively monitor the basket strainers, and then clean them whenever necessary.  In addition, the chances of large glue particles migrating into the product stream were increased due to the inability of the screen to automatically detect the unwanted material, and then make internal adjustments to remove them. This many times required the raw material to be filtered several times to ensure the large particles would not migrate into the spray nozzles. The combination of all factors resulted in lower profits for the entire facility.

The Tissue manufacturer discovered that one Eaton brand self-cleaning filter could replace their costly, maintenance intensive basket strainers. They found that the filter eliminated the need for an employee to monitor and clean the basket screens, which increased the length of their run time. In addition, due to the implementation of the self-cleaning filter, the raw materials only needed to be filtered once, rather than multiple times. This permitted them to increase their profitability!

SITUATION

To begin, a Tissue Manufacturer had been having problems with their spray nozzles clogging due to large glue particles migrating through the production line. In addition, due to the clogging of the spray nozzles, lesser quality end product was sneaking through which mandated the need to filter the raw materials time and time again. At first they thought the answer was the use of two basket strainers positioned within the manufacturing line to reduce glue particle migration. However, once the strainers were placed they noticed shorter run times, lesser end product, as well as another escalating cost — employee overhead!

Unfortunately, the company had only succeeded in transitioning the issue of the glue particles clogging from the spray nozzles to the clogging of the basket strainers. Worse yet, the strainers had to be constantly monitored 24/7, as well as require a dedicated employee to manually clean each screen when it became clogged. They also had to filter the raw material several times to ensure a well-filtered (clean) stream. Therefore, they were out the cost of the employee, valuable raw materials, as well as the fact that overall production time was lengthened.

Run time: The run time of the production line was decreased due to the need to clean the screen each time the filter screen was clogged. This resulted in lengthening of overall production time, which flew in the face of their lean manufacturing process goals

Costs: The need to designate one employee to monitor — and subsequently clean — the screens increased the cost of production.  And, they had to re-filter materials several times to catch the unwanted glue particles. If this is not bad enough, if some larger particles slipped thru the system the spray nozzles would clog which triggered additional costs.

Profits: The Company had to continuously monitor the basket strainers; which was taking away much needed resources from other areas of production. It was necessary to clean the basket screens several times per day, and consequently employees had to establish whether the raw materials that were just filtered, required additional filtering. When all the issues were analyzed together they identified a significant decrease in their profitability. Subsequently, it was determined that they needed the advice of a filtration expert.

SOLUTION

Eaton’s Filtration business,  analyzed their situation, and determined that one DCF-800 self cleaning filter could replace their two basket strainers.

The Eaton brand DCF self-cleaning filter is a closed system that is not open to the atmosphere, relying on pump pressure (not gravity) to filter liquids. This filter would tackle their shortened run time, monitoring issues, and escalating employee/raw materials costs that resulted in lower profits. Their headaches could be handled with one self cleaning filtration unit!

The DCF self-cleaning filter is based on a simple concept: cylindrical stainless steel housing contains a filterscreen; unfiltered liquids enter the inlet; solids are deposited on the interior surface of the filtration media; and filtered fluid exits at the outlet. This enables the filter to be completely enclosed, and run automatically with minimal operator intervention.

The Paper Processing application details are as follows:
Model:	DCF-800
Liquid:	Water Based Glue
Retention:	230 micron
Pressure:	10 psi (0.69 bar)
Flow Rate:	5 gpm (18.9 l/min)
Viscosity:	1.4 cps
Contaminant:	Paper Fiber

RESULTS

Due to this new self-cleaning filtration system, the need for basket strainers was eliminated, as well as the need for employees to monitor them. And, the secondary filtration of raw materials was unnecessary. This resulted in approximately 10/hours/week labor savings and enabled their run times to be longer.

Most importantly, because the Eaton brand DCF-800 was placed prior to the glue application nozzles it eradicated any large glue particles filtering thru to the next stage, which were the spray nozzles. The costs for extra spray nozzles, employee overhead, and re-filtration of raw materials were eliminated! 

Impressively, the customer ended up purchasing a second DCF-800 because of the success of the first.

 
If you would like to discuss this filtration solution with one of our highly trained Applications Specialists, please contact Eaton today.

If you would like to read more published real-world documented case studies about how our industrial filters have helped customers improve their bottom line, please visit the Eaton filtration website.