By
Jane Cooper
In today's cutthroat industrial world, achieving maximum efficiency is crucial for manufacturers to beat out their competition.
But did you know that most manufacturing businesses are only operating at around 60-80% efficiency? That means up to a whopping 40% loss is affecting bottom lines because of issues like defective products and inefficient machinery.
However, new technology and mechanics are being used to drive production in more effective ways, thus increasing their income.
One important piece of equipment that more industries are taking advantage of is the lump breaker.
Because of their economical and low-maintenance design, lump breakers are being used by some of the largest manufacturers in the world for a plethora of uses.
Lump breakers are used to break solids, lumps, and agglomerates down to a desired size with a once-through, non-churning, crushing action. They are capable of handling wet, sticky, dry, hard, or soft substances.
After inserting a product into a lump breaker, large particles are crushed by rotating blades as they move through a set of stationary comb-like blades. The particles are reduced in size until they are small enough to pass through and discharge from the lump breaker.
Lump crushing equipment improves downstream processing by creating materials that are easier to deal with. However, they can also be used within any part of a processing system.
Lump breakers provide many benefits to those who invest in them, such as reducing plant downtime, increasing processing speed, and improving product consistency. We’re now going to break down five major benefits of using a lump breaker for your processing needs.
The most important benefit of a quality lump breaker is its variety of capabilities that can be used in several parts of the production process.
They can be used to:
Not only are they multi-functional, but they can be used for several kinds of materials. These include:
Because of their diverse ability to work in different processes as well as on different materials, the same kinds of lump breakers can be seen in several different industries across the world.
After long periods of storage, dry bulk materials will often become compressed. Particles will naturally become denser as the finer materials sift their way to the bottom while the larger particles stay on top. This process causes air pockets to collapse, creating large compression lumps.
Some common examples of where this might happen include:
Even worse, if the containers are exposed to humidity or moisture, they can create even harder lumps that take more energy to break apart.
A common solution to this will be to install lump breakers below their silos to break the material down. This is common in sugar processes.
When materials create large lumps, getting them from one place to another is much more difficult and inefficient, especially if you use pneumatic conveying.
By getting rid of agglomerates, raw materials are much easier to handle on a belt conveyor.
With a lump breaker, you can create materials that are the right air to particle ratio (depending on the density of the powder). Not only will this make conveyance more efficient, but it could save you from a tremendous headache because of equipment failure when hard lumps stuff a rotary valve in your machinery.
By having more conditioned, dry powder from a lump breaker, your screw feeders, vibrating feeders, and rotary valves will all work smoother.
Lump breakers affect the efficiency of just about any piece of equipment that your raw materials run through, which can save you time and money in the long run.
For example, screening equipment. When something like salt or sugar is stored for a long time and is exposed to moisture, it can form large, solid lumps. If you feed these tough lumps into a screener, you can do severe damage to the screen mesh and the powder sieve.
Screeners scalp oversize particles off the top of the distribution curve and police foreign objects off of the production line. They are not meant to break apart agglomerates.
Another example is milling equipment. If the powder that is added to a mill isn't uniform in size, the mill will not work efficiently.
One last example is the blending of spice mixtures or instant food packets. If lumps are not broken down, it can cause inconsistent taste throughout the product.
By using a lump breaker to reduce these materials, you can prevent inefficiencies and breakdowns from happening to other equipment.
Read More: Watch our powerful pallet shredding Taskmaster XL tear apart pallets with ease.
If you regularly move raw materials from place to place, lumps can add extra energy and cost to your transportation fees.
Transporting large lumps is tough and can even be impossible in certain situations. Once broken down, transportation becomes much easier after the material has been reduced in size.
Lump breakers are becoming highly necessary in several industries because of their flexible functions and benefits.
When choosing the perfect lump breaker for your industry, there are several parameters that you should consider first. These include:
The good news is that Franklin Miller has been a leader in size reduction technology for over 100 years and features some of the best lump breakers for everything from chemicals, food, and minerals to plastics, pharmaceuticals, and more.
Contact us today to find the perfect solution for your industry!
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