Thousands of tons of PC granulate – in a clean environment

Customer:	Chemion
Extracted material:	Polycarbonate (PC) granulates
Industry:	Chemical
Vacuum cleaner:	Ruwac SPS 35 and SPS 250

Chemion has made a name for itself as a specialised service provider in the chemical logistics sector, and operates from the Krefeld-Uerdingen Chemical Park. There, Covestro produces around 250,000 tons of different kinds of Makrolon^® each year. This polycarbonate is used to manufacture CDs, DVDs, solar modules, and roof structures, among its other applications. Chemion contracts with Covestro to handle warehousing, filling and packaging, and it operates a silo logistics centre with around 80 shipping and mixing silos for the purpose.

Problem

It is impossible to prevent all granulate materials from falling on the floor when handling large quantities of PC. Since the granules are small, hard and round, they can cause employees to slip, so the granulates need to be vacuumed up immediately.

Solution

Chemion uses type SPS 35 and SPS 250 vacuum cleaners for this purpose, although they were originally developed for something quite different: extracting chips produced during metalworking.

“Double” suction is typical in this type of vacuum cleaner. The chips are separated from the fluid (normally from a lubricant) and retained in a pre-separator. This process is an advantage when vacuuming Makrolon® granulates. The machines and systems are flushed with water, so that no contamination is created between the individual packaged batches. The plastic particles collect in the pre-separator, while the water enters the vacuum cleaner itself. The particles are then recycled, and the water is disposed of via the in-house treatment system.