At its Lübeck site, GREIF-VELOX develops and produces filling systems for chemicals, food and building materials of various consistencies, among other things. A market benchmark in the programme is vacuum technology and intelligent solutions for safety and cleanliness, which allow filling processes to be designed more economically.
25. June 2018
The complete system fills up to 100 bags per hour at the customer's premises.
At its Lübeck site, GREIF-VELOX develops and produces filling systems for chemicals, food and building materials of various consistencies, among other things. A market benchmark in the programme is vacuum technology and intelligent solutions for safety and cleanliness, which allow filling processes to be designed more economically.
Highly dusty and dirty products such as activated carbon, flame carbon black, silica, colour powders, pigments or other ultra-fine powders place special demands on the filling technology in the packaging process. Experts in low bulk density powders (dusts) know the usual bagging results only too well: bulky, dusty, unstable bags that contain more trapped air than the actual product. GREIF-VELOX changes this by means of a patented vacuum packing process.
Ralf Drews
„With this solution, the customer saves 73 per cent of its logistics costs and has been able to significantly increase occupational safety by completely eliminating dust pollution,“ emphasises Ralf Drews, Managing Director GREIF-VELOX.
In the process Valve bags with the VELOVAC vacuum packer up to 50 per cent narrower and essential more compact and more stable. GREIF-VELOX achieves a particularly accurate and stable pallet pattern when filling the finest powders thanks to this compactness. By using the VELOVAC, extremely light and fine bulk solids with particle sizes smaller than 200 µm and a bulk density of less than 350 g/l Up to 75 per cent of logistics costs saved become.
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Dr Alexander Mildner
„Through mechanical and digital optimisations, for example in the area of Industry 4.0, we can implement individual solutions for each customer that enable further significant competitive advantages through efficient bagging,“ emphasises Dr Alexander Mildner, Head of Research and Development at GREIF-VELOX, emerged.
Efficient, visionary and reliable
Bagging goods with the patented vacuum technology is quick, clean, safe and precise. The vacuum chamber of the packer is completely closed and effectively prevents the processed materials from escaping. This means an additional Protection against contamination the surrounding area, but also a particularly Product-friendly process. The residues of the bulk materials, some of which are of very high quality, are collected in the chamber, extracted via a filter system and fed back into the product feed without loss. Thanks to the automatic self-cleaning system, the system is emptied residue-free, waste is greatly reduced and the availability of the system is increased.
Dust-free filling with the VELOVAC also contributes to the Occupational safety with. Bagging in the vacuum chamber minimises dust exposure in the area surrounding the packaging system, protecting employees from the health consequences of dust exposure.
When using the VELOVAC vacuum packer, valve bags become up to 50 per cent narrower and considerably more compact and stable (left-hand stack).
Example from practice
GREIF-VELOX realised a special, customised solution for a globally active chemical group, which covers the entire bagging process from Carbon Black, a high-quality industrial carbon black, is fully automated.
In the first step, the valve bags are placed in the vacuum chamber by means of an automatic insertion machine (Valvomat), which works with an insertion accuracy of over 99.7 per cent. In the completely closed vacuum chamber of the VELOVAC itself, the soot is sucked into the bag by an atmospheric vacuum. Any dust that escapes is extracted and fed directly back into the bagging process. After the vacuum chamber has opened again, the board-hard bags are removed by a special robot arm (VeloPack) and the bag valves are sealed using a patented technology (ValvoSeal). The bags are then weighed and valve protrusions are cut off using ultrasound (ValvoCut). The filled bags are then conveyed to the palletiser via conveyor belts. The VeloPack palletising robot takes care of the rest by stacking the bags in an orderly manner to form a very neat pallet pattern.
The fully automatic and low-maintenance system not only leads to lower logistics costs and greater occupational safety, but also to a more efficient and optimised use of personnel resources on site.
