Personal Care Industry |
Wet Wipes
Manufacture Wet Wipe Fluid
Sonic Corp’s Inline Blending Systems are used to streamline the manufacturing and blending of wet wipe fluids. Wet wipes of all shapes and sizes use oils, cleaning solutions, alcohols, disinfectants, preservatives, fragrances and other components. These liquids need to be mixed into a solution typically with water.
Advantages
Sonic’s inline blending systems allow the following improvements during manufacturing of wet wipe solution:
- Eliminates tanking of water
- Eliminates mixing tanks
- Eliminates material transfers to mixing tank
- Reduces overall blending time
- Saves valuable factory floor space
Our skidded systems use several PD pumps with mass flow meters to produce the blend inline. The system draws water from its source and draws other raw materials from totes or drums and meters them at proper ratio directly into the delivery tank that feeds the spraying machines on wet wipe packing lines. Large volume mixing tanks are eliminated and a single skidded system, like the one here, can process the blended fluid essentially on demand. In some cases where there are multiple minor ingredients, a concentrate made in a tote might be required.
Future expansion is accomplished by simply running the Blending Skid at higher rates but still drawing off the same sources for water and components. Formulation changes are accomplished by operating the skidded PD pump at various flow rates to achieve different ingredient ratios. A simple flush out between formulas helps eliminate cross contamination.
Overview
Wet wipe solutions are commonly over 70-90% water. The most typical method for processing is tank mixing and agitation, which is inefficient and labor intensive. Large quantities of water are transferred to a mix tank followed in sequence by the various components. After agitation the mixture is transferred to a delivery tank that feeds the wet wipe production line. This 2-step process requires a large, space-consuming mix tank at high capital cost. With more production volume comes the need for more mixing tanks. The additional tanks come at a high cost and consume ever valuable floor space.
What Makes Sonic Mixing Different
Fully-Automated Blending Skid
A basic Blending System design would include a primary PD pump to handle water at 50-95% of formulation. Additional PD pumps are selected and used based on ingredient viscosity and other fluid properties. These pumps would meter preservatives, disinfectants, oils and other ingredients, or in some cases a premix of these minor materials made up in a tote. Each pump is piped with standard instrumentation and, most importantly, mass flow meters which guarantee accurate ratio control within +/-0.35% – 0.50%.
Sonic Corp’s skidded systems are custom designed and include PLC automation to provide a stand-alone solution that starts making valid product once piping connections are made to source materials. The PLC program provides:
- Full automated flow and ratio control
- Full manual control
- Cleaning and flush mode
- Alarm and shutdown for ratio, flow, pressure and temperature
- Data logging
Sonic has its own panel building shop where we design and fabricate UL approved VFD cabinets. These VFD cabinets operate the pump motors to provide efficient modulation of the pump flow rates and ratios. Our systems can also include the finished product delivery tank that feeds the spraying units on the wet wipe packing line. We tie instrumentation from this tank into the overall control scheme so it always maintains proper level and never runs dry! We also mount this tank right on the skid in many cases so you receive a full skidded package!
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