Dutch livestock feed equipment manufacturer Trioliet has commissioned what is believed to be the world’s first energy-efficient dual-coat powder coating installation.
Developed together with Gema Switserland, the installation’s Swiss supplier, and AkzoNobel Powder Coatings, the new method doubles production capacity while using only half of the energy required by equivalent installations.
Trioliet already had a single-coat powder coating installation. However, certain machine parts require two coats: a primer and a top coat. These parts were previously outsourced, the new installation allows this second coat can to now be applied at the Oldenzaal facility where mixer wagons and feed robots are made.
What makes the new powder coating line so special is that it has only one curing oven instead of the usual two. A new, specially developed coating allows the second coat to be applied directly after the first, without the need to heat the parts in the intervening period.
This eliminates both an oven and a cleaning cycle, saving an estimated 75,000m³ of natural gas a year. The powder coating installation is equipped with a heat recovery system, which sees heat released by the oven at the end of the powder coating process returned to the cleaning installation at the beginning of the cycle.
The new installation has two automatic spray booths, which doubles the previous capacity. Electricity for the blasting and spray booths is generated by 4,400 roof-mounted solar panels above the production facilities.
