Market demand for increased quantity and higher quality drove Cartiera di Momo to decide in late 2015 to replace the existing 30 years old Bekaert Solaronics infrared systems with the goals of increasing the machine speed, reducing the gas consumption as well as improving the quality.
Cartiera di Momo produces recycled coated paperboard. UniDryer® V3 made of two rows of Gem12E emitters followed by a set of 4 air bars.
Bekaert Solaronics supplied four gas infrared systems; UniDryer® V3 followed by sets of Air Bars after each of the four coating stations. The Energy Recovery Concept was again applied to this project with the Air Bars Sets directly fed by the exhaust hot air coming from the UniDryer® V3 systems. This concept allows even more energy savings. The start up took place in August 2016.
Huge energy savings of over 30 percent
All the goals of the project have been met. Implementation of Air Bars with ERS has led to a drastic decrease of gas consumption. “Almost immediately natural gas consumption dropped drastically,” says Mr. M. Ugo Dell’Aria Burani, Managing Director, Cartiera di Momo. “Only ten months after the installation, savings of over 30 percent were measured with natural gas consumption of approximately 9.9 standard cubic meters per ton of production versus the previous 13 standard cubic meters per ton,” he adds.
UniDryer® V3 allows machine speed to increase and brings higher quality
The project’s goal was to increase the machine speed while keeping or improving the quality requested by the end customers.Thanks to its power and flexibility, the UniDryer® V3 achieves optimal quality control: the infrared parts of the systems allow reaching the gel point in a fast time lapse and the convective parts of the systems permit reaching the average moisture needed for the application.
Cartiera di Momo quality engineers measured and compared the offset printing before and after the machine modification. According to Mr. M. Ugo Dell’Aria Burani, the difference is noticeable. He says, “The optimal drying of all coating layers gave considerably improved print quality”.
The target of the machine speed increasehas also been achieved: “the new dryer systems allowed us to attain faster machine speed” says M. Ugo Dell’AriaBurani.
Cartiera di Momo and Bekaert Solaronics, a true and long-term partnership
Cartiera di Momo had an over 30-year partnership with Bekaert Solaronics, which started in 1985. Cartiera di Momo was the first Bekaert Solaronics customer in Italy to install infrared drying systems after each of the three coating stations. In 1987, a new Bekaert Solaronics system was added to dry the back side treatment. This last system was upgraded in 2012 with Gem9 emitters in order to enhance drying capacity.
