Gold Series® Cleans Up Detergent Dust Dilemma

Challenge

Amway Global produces a line of laundry detergent among many other products at their Global Headquarters in Michigan. The plant itself has several old competitive dust collectors. Specifically, a 20-year old C.P. Environmental collector needed to be replaced due to the age of the unit and serious leakage problems that were potentially dangerous to plant operations. Further, this dust collector needed the filter cartridges to be replaced once every quarter due to moisture in the powdered detergent, which was plugging the filters. Maintenance was very expensive and time consuming.

Solution

Ada Township of Michigan was a destination for Camfil Farr APC rep Brandon Dohn of Burke Sales & Engineering along with APC’s regional manager Matt Caulfield. In August 2009, Brandon and Matt took a one week tour of Michigan with the Gold Series trailer. They stopped by Amway Global to show them the Gold Series demo trailer. They learned that Amway Global had never heard of APC and was actually in the process of purchasing a dust collector. Brandon said that they were amazed by the gauge and heaviness of Gold Series’ construction and the easy-to-change filters, which was a plus to Amway Global. “During our presentation they immediately came to see the benefits of using our collector over the competition,” Brandon says. “The Gold Series basically sold itself!” Amway Global was delighted further when they learned that the model GS10 they purchased could use the existing ductwork and fan.

GS10 at Amway Global

Amway Global Maintenance Professionals admire the ease of filter access the Gold Series provides.

This pyramid hopper features a special mounting bracket for a vibrator to aid in material flow.

During the purchasing process in December of 2009, Camfil Farr APC determined that the powdered detergent dust was explosive. “After testing their dust, they were grateful that we were proactive in helping them understand their situation and expressing concern for the safety of their workers,” Brandon says. They added an explosion vent a couple months after the initial installation. They could not be happier with the performance of the Gold Series collector, having generated substantial savings in compressed air usage, and have yet to change the DuraPleat spun bond filters that were provided to them. The GS10 provided 5,000 CFM and 9” of static pressure.