Furniture manufacturer Alstons has completely overhauled the dust and waste extraction system at its Ipswich plant in a major investment.
The company asked Moldow to provide a complete system dealing with the plant and transfer of all material to the storage silo, which serves a wood waste boiler generating all heating.
Moldow originally installed a four filter system 30 years ago with an extraction capacity of 250,000m3 of air per hour. But the additional air volume and pressure required by a new Homag power line in 2001 necessitated an overhaul.
Moldow proposed converting two of the existing MS filters into suction plenums, with all exhaust air being filtered in a 37 section 23m long Moldow MXL filter.
The volume of air required by the total number of machines, including the Holmag power line and a Delle Vedove, is 285,000m3 per hour, with each line handled by a separate high efficiency fan system so they can be accommodated separately with minimum power consumption.
The remainder of machines, including CNC routers, edgebanders and saws are handled by the plenum systems with eight fans.
An advantage of the plenum systems is minimum disruption if machines need to be moved or additional ones added.
Thermal energy requirements are reduced by recycled filtered air with secondary filtration, fitted to ensure no possible detrimental effects to machines or operatives.
