Thermal oxidation with regenerative heat recovery (RTO) for gravure printing (labels)

Posing the tasks

High band speeds with the best printing results is the claim made of gravure printing. The use of solvents is indispensable in the process. As can be seen by the example of a label printer, the regenerative thermal oxidation (RTO) process is the proven technology, and has been for many years when it comes to cleaning solvent-laden exhaust air from the print machine dryer. Following procurement of a new printing machine, however, an existing competition system had to be deployed for a short period.

Solution / Highlights

Changing themes with low to high colour applications in the label printing industry can result in heavily fluctuating solvent concentrations in the exhaust air. The RTO represents an economical solution for exhaust air purification due to its high degree of flexibility. At low solvent loadings, a degree of heat recovery of over 90% ensures only a moderate consumption of supplemental fuel. The required flexibility for high solvent concentrations is achieved by means of a hot gas bypass.

With a view to the continuous growth of our customer's business, it's only natural that the new exhaust air purification system should not need replacement in just a few years. For this reason, the installed system was laid out so that a doubling of the presently treatable exhaust air volume flow is possible. The increase in investment costs for this variant equates to less than 5% of the total investment. Accordingly, the view to the future does not burden the budget of today.