Air Knives
Description
Air knives act as cleaners and employ air stream to push out liquids or unwanted foreign substances or debris or any freestanding material, off a conveyor or a surface. The air knife consists of an air inlet and an outlet chamber. Air connects both the inlet and the outlet chambers. In most cases, the air knives are stationary and the substances pass through (as in a conveyor), but sometimes the air knives move from one point to the other to remove the immobile substances. Air knives give out a high intensity and uniform sheet of laminar airflow (streamline flow). Materials used in making air knives are either metals (stainless steel or aluminum) or plastic.
Types
Based on the design, they are classified into
For low-pressure blow off air, compressed air powered air knives have lower efficiency than blower powered air knives. Based on air blow off operation, air knives are divided into
Linear air knives
Circular air knives
Air nozzles
Features
Air knives have the following features:
Removes any foreign substance from any substrate
Reduces the usage of harmful solvents for cleaning industrial parts
Increases productivity
Improves quality and working environment
Energy saving and quiet in operation
Low in maintenance
Applications
Normally air knives are used in manufacturing or in recursive recycling first phase as to separate lighter particles from other components. Air knives are used in drying of: cans and bottles after filling and rinsing; printed circuit boards (PCB) after washing them to remove solder pastes; metal castings subsequent to automatic machining. In industrial applications like storage areas in food processing, dust free clean rooms, they act as an invisible barrier for separating heated and cooled environments from each other.