The coast is clear: air stays away from the drum!

A new vacuum system from Tartler is setting standards for filling high-viscosity resins

TAVA VakuumspannfassSystems manufacturer Tartler is showcasing the latest generation of vacuum stations for drum filling without any air pockets under the model name TAVA 200 F. For the first time ever, the company is offering a system solution that can be put to use in many industries and can be used to fill lidded drums with many different high-viscosity and pasty resins in a way that ensures process reliability. Material manufacturers and users alike will benefit from this in industrial practice.

Michelstadt, November 2017. – Whether it’s done in plastics technology, in adhesives production or in the manufacture of sealing and filling compounds, in many industries high-viscosity and pasty compounds are “packaged” into lidded drums which are then used by the processor as complete containers in the conveying, mixing, metering and application systems. But if air pockets have formed in the material while the manufacturer was filling the drum, the user can bet that the air will enter the metering pump sometime during the application, conveying and metering process. The metering process is then severely disrupted, and often the procedure needs to be interrupted. In this situation, the entire system has to be “flushed” with material until it is free of air bubbles and working properly again. Not only does this result in excessive material loss; it incurs additional costs too, because many parts have to be disposed of as scrap.

Back in 2014, with the aim of protecting users from precisely this situation, Tartler developed a material withdrawal solution with drum follower plate pumps which quickly became an established product on the market. The solution is a vacuum drum change system where the air is sucked out between the surface of the material in the drum and the moving follower plate in a controlled fashion. Ventilation problems are therefore effectively prevented and drums can be changed without any material loss or splattering – which makes for substantially improved process reliability and occupational safety!

Filling without air pockets

But to overcome the problem of air pockets on the material manufacturer and filler side as well as the user side, Tartler has now developed the new TAVA 200 F vacuum filling system. This compact, semi-automatic vacuum station for air-free filling of 200 litre lidded drums can be put to highly flexible use for many different pasty and high-viscosity resins, and can easily be designed for other container sizes too. It is essentially made up of four components: an intake for drum clamping and stabilisation, a special combi attachment for synchronised vacuum generation and filling, a vacuum pump, and a control unit with touchscreen.

All the components are installed in a space-saving and easy-to-reach manner on a base with drum centring plate. Drums are fed into the station and positioned onto the centring plate while still empty as part of a manual process, which also includes closing of the clamping fixture. Meanwhile, the vacuum is built up in the drum and the pasty compound is poured into the drum (almost at the same time) fully automatically. The drum is filled without any air pockets in a matter of minutes, sealed with a cover film, and can then be transported away. Tartler demonstrates this process in this video:

Systems manufacturer Tartler took many eventualities into account when developing the new TAVA 200 F. Once the vacuum has built up in the drum, the material entry interface, for example, can be adjusted using various material feed mechanisms (perforated plates, wide spray nozzles, etc.). The air resulting from the metering process or manufacturing is thus removed immediately, as soon as the conveyor system introduces the material into the evacuated drum. Tartler also offers a system variant for 50 litre drums in the form of the smaller TAVA 50 F.

Fully automatic for large volumes

The new TAVA 200 F from Tartler is a real bonus for all producers, fillers and packers of pasty and high-viscosity media. Material manufacturers can use it to give their customers the guarantee that they will receive perfectly filled drums without any air pockets, thus enabling further processing of the contents in a way that ensures process reliability. Another positive side benefit is that storage stability is increased because air-based contamination is no longer possible. The user also benefits from a simple, on-premise degassing station when using the manual variant of the TAVA 200 F.

What’s more, Tartler is even offering the TAVA 200 F as a fully automatic complete solution for material manufacturers who have to efficiently fill lidded drums with large volumes of resins. The focal point of this product is a powered turret on which four drums are positioned, filled and sealed as the turret rotates. Drum feeding and removal take place using roller conveyors – as part of an automatic process. The next video gives an impression of what this might look like in practice:

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