A decorated paper printing company was looking to reduce ventilation air and fuel costs without affecting production rates or violating the NFPA safety directives. They were using large amounts of heated air to ventilate their dryers to keep the solvent vapor concentration below 25% LFL as directed by the NPFA codes. However, the codes allow a substantial reduction in air in cases where a continuous solvent vapor analyzer is installed. When such instruments are installed to continuously sample the exhaust of a dryer zone, the vapor concentration in that zone is allowed to rise as high as 50% LFL.
So the company chose to install Flammability Analyzers on their dryers so they could run above 25%LFL. This allowed them to reduce costs while maintaining safety and production levels. This type of analyzer was the perfect fit for this application for a couple of reasons. First, because they change their ink mix regularly they did not want to have to recalibrate each time they did. This particular analyzer type gives consistent and reliable readings with multiple or changing solvent concentrations without re-calibration. Which allows continued production and avoids downtime. Secondly, with the possibility of silicones being present from the final top coat application, the analyzer needed to be resistant to these substances. This analyzer is free from poisoning by plasticizers or silicones.
Read on to find out more details about how the PrevEx Flammability Analyzer was the right choice for this application.
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