Epcons Thermal Deoiler Replaces Liquid-Based Degreaser

A major manufacturer of automobile air conditioners replaced their liquid based degreaser with a waterless and solventless deoiling system.

It needed to be replaced. For years, the manufacturer had been deoiling metal parts in a conveyorized solvent-based vapor degreasing line, but the state environmental agency mandated that the line be shut down on a certain date due to the excessive air and water pollution it generated. Epcon came to the rescue. They committed to designing and constructing a waterless and solventless deoiling system to replace the solvent line in time to meet the deadline. Thermal deoiling is a process that uses indirectly heated dry air to clean parts contaminated with oils or lubricants. The new system was to be a one-on-one replacement for the existing cleaning line, considering production rate, configuration, and parts carriers. A U-shaped configuration was selected which was one hundred feet in length and embodied a working space of eight feet. Recirculation fans were installed for low pressure and high pressure with variable frequency drives places strategically at critical points – to provide temperature balancing within the deoiler chamber. Still Epcon’s installers weren’t done. Air curtains were installed. Careful placements of the return air plenums prevented vaporized oil from escaping the entry and exit vestibules. Another nice touch was a PLC – a programmable logic controller, serving as the operator interface. With a PCL installed, the operator was able to monitor and adjust temperatures, fan speeds, and motor actuated damper positions and alarms. An additional feature of the PLC is its ability to maintain active records of the data, which can also be charted in easy-to-interpret “operator friendly” graphs. Finally, in order to eliminate the vaporized oil (volatile organic compounds), state-of-the-art thermal oxidizer was added to the system. Operating at 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit with a combustion chamber residence time of 1.0 second, vapor destruction removal efficiencies (DREs) of greater than 95% were demonstrated. Epcon is a manufacturer of thermal oxidizers, industrial ovens, heat exchangers, wash lines and coating lines.