Background
The milk powder manufacturing industry is a growing industry. Prices keep on rising due to increased demand from growing economies in Asia. At some point in the production process any additives the customer wants can be added to the agitating milk powder. During this production process dust extraction is a very important issue.
Challenge
In the food processing industry, the filtration techniques and the hygiene requirements are often very hard to combine. The explosion protection requirements are often very high in the milk powder and sugar processing which make the installation very complex to maintain clean. The extracted substances are extremely hygroscopic which makes the filtration very hard and the filtration elements need to be replaced or cleaned often due to the dry medium that is being processed.
Solution
In collaboration with Miltech, we produced the ATEX wet scrubber for air volumes up to 20.000 m³/h. Based on a natural physical principle, water is mixed with air without the use of a pump. All components outside of the airflow is in accordance ATEX zone 22 and all the components within the flow can be considered as ATEX zone 20 approved. The wet scrubber has very few components which makes it very easy to clean with water. In the installation shown here, there is no maintenance needed as it has an integrated automatic water supply and drainage which is coupled to a flush system to clean the scrubber.
