Preface about Better For Planet - Surface Finishing 4 Target

BFP is one of the columns of the Digital Platform Surface Finishing For Target that mostly represents the spirit of the platform itself.

BFP is one of the columns of the Digital Platform Surface Finishing For Target that mostly represents the spirit of the platform itself. Indeed, BFP is willing to introduce to who reads the columns of Surface Finishing For Target the real soul of the information target of this platform, aiming not only to innovation, but to do it in the right direction. Therefore, eco-friendly solutions, sustainability and circular economy are the TARGET of the columns of Better For Planet.

The innovative and sustainable technology Multi Steam – Smart Color

To dye polymers it is not difficult nowadays. To submerge a volume of workpieces into a working tank, duly heated at the right temperature – i.e.: 80°C – in a liquid solution composed of 1 part of colour and 9 of water. Imagine a tank of about 30 liters – where 27 liters of water are added to 3 liters of dying colour. It can be re-used for some tasks, so it appears as a good ratio. Nevertheless, sometimes, or most of the cases, depending on what represents the final job, the colours are no more used, or used after months, even years. In many times, the simple trial for a few components, costs a lot of money due to the cost of the dyeing colors, on one hand, and on the waste dismaintling costs, on the other. A significant step forward in the practical use of dyeing colours is offered by the the innovative and sustainable technology Multi Steam – Smart Color. This technology, also called simply steam dyeing, is offering innovation, sustainability and efficiency at 360°, lets see how.

STEAM SURFING and STEAM DYEING

First of all, one of the main innovations offered by the Multi Steam technology, is to organize multi tasking finishing processes, combined with dying process in one single vibratory finishing unit. Thanks to special elastic media called “QF”, it is possible to first finish a component, then to wash and rinse thoroughly the whole mass of media and workpieces, then to start a Steam Dyeing automatic process, which is normally divided in two phases, as follows:

Steam Surfing

This phase heats up the plastic components (PA12 or different); Polymer are heated up inside the bowl duly covered, with dry saturated steam at temperature between 80°C and 90°C for a time depending on the volume of parts and special elastic media.

Steam DYEING

This phase feeds steam combined with the right flow of liquid colour – this means a ratio between 10 to 30 times less than with a classic dyeing process by submersion. In the example the dosage of liquid colour, pre-diluted (1 part of colour, 2 parts of water) is fed in 225 g. of prediluted (so only 75 gr. of pure liquid colour) to dye 10 sm3 of parts that normally are submerged into a 30 liter tank, with 3 liters of pure liquid color (in this case 3000 g. against 75 g. makes even 40 times less).

The environmentally sustainability of this technology is one of the main reasons to invest in a Multi Steam – Smart Color machine, available from the spring time 2022 with bowl having 25, 50 or 120 liters nominal capacity – the volume normally includes when possible only parts or, when parts are delicate and media is recommended, ratio can vary from 50%+50% to 33%+67%.

In this picture it is shown the mass of media running with few PA12 components coming from SLS – Selective Laser Sintering process.
For further information get in touch with: integram.team@gmail.com