Interview with Jeff Shaffer, Sales Manager of North America and Rob Woodward, Senior Business Development Manager at SuperCorrExpo 2024.
Please tell us about your company.
We’re a manufacturer of fluid handling equipment, pumps, and pumping equipment. We also work in the corrugated space. Here, you can see our new electric diaphragm pump.
We’ve been manufacturing diaphragm pumps for 30 or 40 years. Typically, they are air-driven, like the pumps you see behind me. You would connect a compressed air source to the diaphragm pump, which would then be used to pump starch, inks, and for sump transfer in a corrugated facility.
These new versions are all electric-driven. The real benefit for corrugated manufacturers is the significant energy and cost savings on the operational side when switching from pneumatic to electric pumps.
This pump reduces energy consumption by about 80% compared to a pneumatic pump, and the payback can be very quick for users.
This is a one-inch pump. We use it a lot for white glue and labeling adhesives. We also have inch-and-a-half and two-inch pumps. These pumps are used in starch circulation, starch transfer, and in sump and ink sump areas inside a corrugated facility.
The benefit of these pumps is that they are literally a drop-in replacement for an air diaphragm pump. The only requirement is an electric power source instead of an air power source. Otherwise, they operate the same. You get all the benefits of a diaphragm pump: low shear, no heat, no seals, and significant savings in operating costs.
And sustainability.
Yes, right. They are sustainable. From a green energy standpoint, CO2 reduction, and emissions, this is going to be better. In many areas, like in the US, energy companies will actually pay incentive credits to users to replace pneumatic diaphragm pumps with electric diaphragm pumps. So, it checks a lot of boxes for manufacturers.
Graco Inc., headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is a leading manufacturer of fluid handling equipment. Established nearly 100 years ago, Graco designs and produces premium equipment to move, measure, control, dispense, and spray a wide variety of fluid and powder materials. The company serves thousands of customers in over 100 countries and employs approximately 4,000 people worldwide.
Jeff, thank you. Thank you so much for the information. Now we have Rob Woodward, Senior Business Development Manager. Rob, what do you have that’s interesting for corrugated board producers?
Historically, this has been used for starch transfer. Until recently, pneumatic pumps and air-operated diaphragm pumps were used. This is a new technology: an electric version of the diaphragm pump. It’s much more efficient than the pneumatic version. It has the same capabilities as a pneumatic pump but is a lot more efficient due to the electric drive.
We also have a lot more control with this pump. We can use an I/O port to control the speed of the pump, as well as turn it on and off remotely. That’s what we’re demonstrating here with the simulator. We can also control it locally with this encoder, speeding the pump up or slowing it down.
This is a small one-inch pump. Typically, for starch, we use our larger inch-and-a-half pump, rated for 80 gallons a minute and 100 psi. We also use these in sump applications. This is a flapper check pump, which handles large solids. It has flapper checks instead of ball checks, with a top inlet and bottom discharge.
Again, this one is electric. We also have pneumatic versions of all these pumps. Electric seems to be the way of the future, especially considering the substantial energy savings when you don’t have to fire up that compressor every day, particularly when running 24/7 in a corrugated plant. Compressed air gets very costly.
Bob, thank you. Thank you so much for this interesting story.
You’re very welcome.
Reporting from Orlando by Igor Tkalenko – corruga.expert
