Air Quality Top Priority for Textile Manufacturer

Air quality is a top priority for many manufacturing processes, and in the textile industry, clean, oil-free air often makes the difference between usable end product and contaminated waste.

At a North Carolina-based textile company, compressed air is used to add texture to synthetic yarns. After the fibers are dyed and spun into colorfast yarn, the yarn travels through a compressed air jet that crimps and adds tack or texture to the yarn. To get the texture right, the air that touches the yarn has to be as clean as possible.

The quantity of oil in compressed air depends on several factors, including the type of machine, design, age and condition. Working with older machines, the textile company needed a solution to collect the oil vapor in the compressed air while giving the company peace of mind in the event of a catastrophic failure of an air compressor’s air/oil separator.

The company contacted their Atlas Copco account manager who came to the plant and offered a sustainable solution: add an Atlas Copco MaxLife Fiber Bed Mist Eliminator as the main pre-filter to the dryer, replacing the conventional coalescing filters that required frequent replacement—sometimes every three or four months—and consumed a lot of energy by using pressure differential as the primary means of coalescing.

Once installed, the new MaxLife filter captured lubricant and condensed moisture carryover, while only creating 1/10^th the pressure drop of regular coalescing filters, reducing the plant’s compressed air cost by nearly 7%. With all of the energy savings, the upgrade paid for itself in less than six months. Plus, the element is guaranteed to last for 10 years.

You, too, can have the peace of mind of completely oil-free air in your manufacturing process. Contact us today to learn more about oil-free air options.