Saving water with dry vacuum

Water usage is a major consideration within manufacturing and many in the industry are searching for sustainable processes to minimise the use of this precious resource. The answer may lie in the industry’s willingness to embrace the use of sustainable technologies.

Vacuum technology is used for numerous manufacturing applications such as reducing process temperatures, removal of an array of gases, aiding filtration, transport of materials (pneumatic conveying), drying (reducing drying times) and many more. In Australia and New Zealand, two of the most common methods of generating vacuum are via the use of liquid ring vacuum pumps (LRVPs) and steam ejector systems (SESs). Both these technologies rely on vast quantities of steam and water to generate vacuum and can have high operating costs.

Dry vacuum pump systems, compared to LRVPs and SESs, have no requirements for external media within the pumping stage for generating vacuum. Effectively, whichever process gases are pumped into the system are exhausted out, and there is no hot contaminated effluent generated for treatment. Furthermore, the only site support and utility required is the supply of electricity to the motors.

Dry vacuum technology can be used wherever gases and vapours need to be pumped reliably and without contamination. The compression chamber of pumps using dry vacuum technology is completely free from operating fluids, which prevents condensation and deposits of the pumping medium, while preventing oil contamination. The compression occurs as part of a completely dry process. This makes dry vacuum technology suitable for various applications, including those within the food and beverage industry such as food packaging applications.

Cobra dry screw vacuum pumps can be used for a number of applications, including vacuum distillation, degassing and drying processes. The distillation process is used predominantly in the pharmaceutical and chemical industry, as well as in food and beverage. In terms of degassing and drying applications, Busch can provide a range of dry vacuum pumps which meet the highest hygiene standards and are completely free of operating fluids, making contamination of processed materials impossible.