A New Suction and Recycling System Enabling Steel Abrasives to Be Used in the Field-------------PHENICS

For many years, on-site grit blasting of large metallic structures has been carried out using expendable abrasives such as coal slag, copper slag or garnet. This is due to the fact that it has been difficult, often impossible, to reclaim and reuse such abrasives.

In these circumstances, it has been sensible to use the largest consumptionnonmetal abrasive available, even though it may not be the most effective in terms of speed of blasting and quality of surface finish.

Following evolutions in environmental issues and regulations, encapsulation of large steel structures has become compulsory in most countries enabling the use of recyclable steel abrasives, considered as the best abrasive for creating good adhesion profile prior to painting and coating.

MTB Group, world leading manufacturer and supplier of high carbon steel abrasives has developed Phenics, a mobile suction and recycling system in order to expand steel abrasive blasting operations to large steel structures.

The Phenics equipment is available allowing continuous blasting with 1-4 operators up to 100m suction distance.

The Phenics unit on which both the suction and recycling equipments are enclosed in a single.

On the Phenics unit, the used abrasive is drawn into a 3-stage air separation system incorporating a scalping drum to remove coarse contamination, an air separator, and finally a magnetic separator to recover any abrasive particles removed by the air separator.

High benefits for customers

Thanks to the Phenics system, steel abrasive blasting has become possible offering to end users the best quality in term of surface preparation )at much lower costs (typically 30% of the total cost of the blasting operation).

These savings are achieved through faster blasting, reduced overall abrasive costs, and a very significant reduction in the amount of waste product to be disposed of.

Because most waste contains heavy metals such as lead, cost of waste disposal is really expensive and has increased continuously during the last few years. Waste disposal reduction is then a key point for most customers. Although density of steel abrasive is significantly higher, overall weight of waste has been significantly reduced.

Environmental, health and safety issue

The working conditions of operators are improved dramatically due to a result of lower dust levels and better visibility for operators is an added bonus. Phenics is suitable for most site-blasting projects, including enclosed areas such as large tanks, and a number of projects have been successfully completed across Europe.

Voice of a customer

One of the regular users of Phenics is the French industrial painting company, Battaglino.

"The solution proposed by Phenics enabled the use of steel grit blasting and recycling, which was previously reserved for workshops, for on-site works," says Guillaume Perrin, a Director of Battaglino.

"We achieved a considerable decrease in the amount of waste by recycling steel grit, which is a real environmental advantage. The use of Phenics also helped facilitate the organization at the worksite, through continuous suction of dust, paint flakes and grit, thus preventing the accumulation of materials on the scaffolding. In addition to these advantages, the quality of the surface profile obtained is better, improving the anticorrosion coating adhesion."

Unique package of Steel abrasive, equipment and technical assistance

Phenics offers customer a full package to facilitate their operations, consisting of equipment for hire or sales, technical assistance customized according to customer needs, and high quality steel abrasives specifically designed for air-blasting operations.

Equipments cooperation on sites

Technical Assistance

Profilium--Steel Abrasives