Over the past 40 years, Acrison has established itself as an industry’s authority in dry bulk solids handling, specifically the precision metering of dry solid ingredients by volume or weight and the closely related proportioning, blending, storage and hoppering of these materials.
Acrison, with its headquarters in New Jersey, USA, offers a comprehensive line of volumetric and gravimetric feeders . It maintains an aggressive R&D programme to ensure it maintains a leadership position through in-depth knowledge of the latest industry applications and engineering issues.
According to Paul Matarazzo, Senior Mechanical Engineer at Acrison Inc, one of the company’s strengths is its use of the various metal coating technologies available.
"Metal coatings play a critical part in the performance of our products primarily because of the variety of applications our products serve," reports Matarazzo. "The principle issue is the reduction of friction on our metal feeders to prevent the materials from sticking. Coatings with a lower coefficient of friction (COF) prevent build-up on the machinery and in cases where materials such as pigments are used; accuracy is critical because any error will directly affect the end product. Obviously this can have huge cost implications, for example, in the manufacture of automotive parts or consumer products where the colour of the part is extremely important.
"Pigments themselves are also extremely expensive, especially in the food industry where colour additives are being used. The food industry also has its own unique issue – any of the coatings we use have to be FDA or UDSA-approved and we serve many customers in the food manufacturing industry."
Abrasion of machinery from certain dry bulk solids can also create issues for customers, as well additional expense. Matarazzo adds: "Certain materials will cause abrasion and this kind of damage not only leads to costly production downtime, but can also mean expensive replacement parts. Tungsten carbide and silicon-type materials are particularly abrasive, leading to meter and feeder damage.
"In other cases our customers have applications where materials will react with stainless steel, which is an issue because most of our parts are made from stainless steel. Chlorides like ammonium or stannous chloride will react causing corrosion and even pitting on the steel – a real issue for companies such as pool chemical manufacturers. The reaction between the materials can also contaminate the original material, so the right coating is imperative.
"We also use metal coatings for applications that require a release property in high temperature situations, such as feeding into a furnace at up to 1000°F. These applications require coatings, unlike Teflon, that are able to withstand high temperatures while providing functionality."
Generally speaking, when manufacturing equipment, there are four main coating options available to Acrison; chrome coating, ceramic coating, Acrison’s own in-house coatings, and finally coatings provided by proprietary metal coating provider, General Magnaplate Corporation.
Given the available options, a key question is why Acrison would outsource coatings as its traditionally more expensive to send parts out for coating and also adds time to the overall process?
Matarazzo says the company was able to provide release coatings that outperform others available in the marketplace and with a much lower COF.
He said: "Recently we had a customer whose materials was reacting with our steel parts in a rubber compounding application, so we turned to Magnaplate to solve the problem. If they do not have a coating available to solve the problem, then they'll engineer one that custom fits the application.
"Magnaplate provides a wide variety of proprietary coatings, many of which meet strict federal standards such as FDA and USDA compliance. This enables us to better serve these particular industries. Most importantly, however, is the life-span that Magnaplate’s coatings offer metal parts.
"Some of the machinery we produce is expected to survive 20 years, being used on a gruelling daily schedule, and we need to provide customers with minimum downtime and a low cost of ownership. If a feeder is processing 100000 pound per hour then every hour it is not operating is extremely costly for the customer.
"In one instance we installed a feeder in Chicago in 1963 and today its still going strong without even replacing an auger! Magnaplate’s coatings are designed to increase the lifespan of metal parts and their technology enables us to have utter confidence with our customers. It does help that our customers are very familiar with the Magnaplate name – that in itself breeds confidence."
