Ammeraal Beltech is preparing to launch the production of conveyor belts with fabrics obtained from PET bottles. 

With this new initiative, Ammeraal Beltch aims to provide the customers the opportunity to run their business in a more sustainable way, supporting the well-being of the planet. It is envisioned to introduce this technology to every industry and application. 

The process involves the collection of PET bottles and turning them into fabrics, which can be next interwoven into the structure of the belts. Such a procedure significantly reduces carbon dioxide emissions and requires less water and energy. 

To read more about this eco-friendly campaign, click here. 

What Are Coating Materials? 

Coating materials mean materials added to the belt surface to optimise its performance. There are various types of fabrics that can be used, each of them resulting in different qualities.

How to Choose a Coating Material?

Before you choose a specific coating material, define your needs. Here are just a few questions to take into consideration:

• What is the application of the belt?
• Is it exposed to chemical agents, like acids?
• What is the span of working temperatures?
• How does the process of cleaning look like?
• Is the surface exposed to abrasion? 
• How do you need the surface to perform?
• What products will be conveyed? 

What Are the Types of Coating Materials?

Synthetic belts rely on polymers as coating materials. Polymers are made of long, repeating chains of molecules and can be divided into 2 different groups:

• thermoplastics, which can melt under the heat,
• thermoset plastics, which retain their form and stay solid despite the heat.

The compounds that are most often used in coating materials include:

• PVC 

This acronym stands for polyvinyl chloride, which is a thermoplastic polymer. The material is well-known for its flexibility and durability. It is used for instance in Flexam coatings, where it is responsible for their good chemical resistance, ability to withstand exposure to heat and humidity, and flame retardancy in line with ISO 340. With such qualities, Flexam is the standard choice for such industries as airports, logistics, agriculture, fruit and vegetables, marble and ceramic. 

• Polyurethane 

Polyurethane coatings do not release harmful toxins or chemicals. The product conveyed is fully protected, which makes this solution suitable for various food applications. Polyurethane coatings can be either thermoplastic or thermoset. The former exhibit excellent resistance to grease, oils, and chemicals.

• Polyolefin 

Polyolefins coatings are the most versatile ones. They are characterised by exceptional resistance to chemicals, corrosion, UV, and impacts. They require less maintenance. You may find them most often in laboratory, food, and automotive sectors.

• Polyester

Polyester coatings are very strong and display high abrasion and cut resistance. The solution is valued for its resiliency and durability.

What Are the Functions of Coating Materials?

Coatings are used to improve the functionality of the belt surface. While the belt itself is designed to transmit large drive forces and have the lowest possible elongation, a suitable coating can upgrade its properties and bring the results you need. Different types of coatings have different qualities. By selecting a specific coating, you might:

• make the belt stronger, 
• enhance its resistance to chemicals, temperatures, abrasion, oils, greases, or solvents,
• improve the coefficient of friction, 
• influence the level of elasticity and grip, 
• extend the service life of the belt, making it more durable and wear-resistant, 
• reduce friction and noise emissions,
• avoid contamination and adhesives. 

Kontakt vores eksperter

Do you wonder what coating material would be the best option for you? Kontakt vores eksperter and tell us about your business. We’ll come up with the solution tailored specifically to your needs.

Sustainability of airports is widely discussed in the aviation industry. The topic is getting more and more spotlight since the care for the planet, society, and economy is now rightfully in the centre of attention. What can you do to make airports more sustainable? Let’s discover together!

Why Is Sustainability in the Airport Industry Important?

Airports connect the world. Thanks to them, people feel citizens of the globe more than ever. However, their ecological footprint is significant as well. Aviation generates nearly 3% of global GHG emissions. But their impact is not only ecological. They are intertwined with a myriad of social and economic factors as well. They contribute to creating job opportunities and support tourism. By paying attention to sustainability, airports can improve the environmental, social, and economic situation, but also be better perceived by the investors and stakeholders.

How Can Airports Be More Sustainable? 

Sustainable Airports: The Environment

Understanding how airports shape the surroundings is the first thing. With respect to the environment, their operations are linked to large energy and fuel consumptions as well as to greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to climate change. The aspect of water usage is also involved. 

Airports developing sustainably take into consideration materials they are using, design ways to save the energy, and constantly aspire to improve the operational efficiency. The strive towards energy-efficient or renewable energy based services is visible. Measures are taken to reduce carbon emissions, waste, and effluents. 

When thinking about the energy management, airports could start with a map depicting the energy use across all the facility and the suggestions to optimise them. It is possible to generate the energy from renewable sources, like solar, wind, biomass, hydrogen. The Cochin International Airport in India produces 100% of its energy through renewables, by installing a large solar array on airport buildings and surrounding land. As such, the airport is known as the first “green airport” in the world and in 2018 it was awarded the Champion of Earth Award – the United Nations’ highest environmental honour.

It may also be vital to choose the solutions that help to run operations with lower energy consumption. At Ammeraal Beltech, we are devoted to the energy saving concept, which means that airports can lower their power requirements and operating costs through the right selection of belt, conveyor design, and motor drive system. Sustainable building technologies have come a long way to reduce energy consumption during construction, in HAVAC temperature control and solar roofing, however very little has changed when considering a typical baggage handling conveyor in over 50 years. This is the aspect our energy saving concept strives to solve, adding new insights towards efficient operations.

The existing systems are often inefficient, because of their complex design. 

• Think of simplifying the conveyor to reduce the friction caused by components and look for the lowest friction possible. 
• Reduce surface resistance with low friction fabric underside. 
• You may also want to replace heavy belts with lightweight and flexible solutions, because they enable the use of smaller pulleys. 
• Make sure you apply the correct tension and install motion control devices to avoid unnecessary operations. 
• Use belts that allow you to build longer conveyors with fewer drives. 

All the above steps, may help you reduce the energy consumption and enhance the efficiency of your operations. 

One possible solution to achieve the above-mentioned results is AMMdurance, which reduces friction between the belt and the underlying machinery and thus translates into reduced power usage. The tests have revealed that with AMMdurance and a special deck, it is possible to lower the energy consumption even by up to 27% in comparison to standard solutions. Special dry treatment combined with low noise EX fabrics protects the belt material against contamination and shrinkage, ensuring efficient running performance for much longer duration of the belt life. AMMdurance stands for consistent energy savings, reduced ecological footprint, longer belt life, minimised maintenance and downtime, superior savings, and profitability over time.

Furthermore, increasing efficiency not only reduces aggregate energy consumption, it also helps reducing peak loads which play into further lowering energy bills, where favourable energy tariff structures exist.

As far as emissions are concerned, the new light shed on the airport infrastructure can bring about another inspirations. Have you ever thought how easy it is to travel to and from the airport? Prioritising public transport, improving its speed and reliability, can significantly contribute to the reduction of emissions. Also, the use of electric vehicles within airport estate can help.

Airports developing friendly to the environmental policies might also focus on using solutions which are sustainably produced, relying on recycled components. Recycled polyester, for example, is a perfect substitute for the virgin one and does not influence the quality of performance. At Ammeraal Beltech, we use it to produce belt fabrics. The process of production entails smaller carbon dioxide emissions and requires less water and energy. 

Sustainable Airports: The Society

A sustainable airport is also the one that takes care of the social factors involved, like noise management, employee and customer satisfaction, community trust. The premises can become more vital for the employees, communities, and users by improving local air quality, noise level, and the quality of service. The openness to dialogue and action is the key to success. 

Think of aviation infrastructure, operations, and environments within a human-centred framework. You may use solutions that limit the airport noise, like AMMDurance belts do for your baggage handling systems, but you may also go as far as incorporating the nature into the immediate environs, just like the airports in Frankfurt and Zurich did.

Frankfurt International is the largest airport in Europe, located in Germany in a densely populated region. It invested into an extensive system of green roofs of about 40,000 m2 to improve the environment, air quality, temperature regulation, and experiential qualities like noise reduction. Similarly, the roof of Kloten International in Zurich (Switzerland) is green and measures 4,000 m2.

Sustainable Airports: The Economy

Suitability in airports is also inextricably linked to the economy. These are the places that provide jobs and stimulate the national wealth. That is why they need to continually enhance their contributions, satisfy passengers, and meet employee needs.  

They can do so continually ensuring passenger health and safety, while providing the best customer experience. Lower noise levels, faultless baggage claiming systems, and helpful service are just some examples of improvements. It might also be a good practice to review the food and beverage offerings to include healthier options.  

Rethinking the human resources policies might be viable, too. It’s time for more flexible and innovative working conditions and being open to dialogue with employees. Their engagement can change the reality for the better. With a stronger sense of community, they may become powerful ambassadors of the airport operators. 

A closer look at the supply chain can also give you ideas for enhancements. You might choose the suppliers who demonstrate sustainable practices on their own or choose local businesses to strengthen your relations with the community, boost the local economy, and reduce the carbon footprint associated with deliveries. 

Contact our experts!

As you may see, airports have a huge array of possible actions on the path to becoming more sustainable. With our knowledge on conveying solutions and energy saving technologies, we’ll be glad to help you improve your airport operations and sustainability scores. Contact our experts and let us make your business move.

Sources

• Airport Corporate Sustainability: An Analysis of Indicators Reported in the Sustainability Practices
• Cochin International Airport: India’s Champion in Sustainable Energy
• What Makes a Sustainable Airport?
• Recovering Sustainably: Why and How Airports Can Initiate, Maintain, or Enhance Their Sustainability Commitments
• Reducing Airport Greenhouse Gas Emissions Through Renewable Energy Generation and Demand Reduction
• Aviation’s Flight Path to a Net-Zero Future

The perception of a company producing food is closely entailed with sales. From time to time, we see a note at our local superstore that a certain product batch is being recalled from the market, and that we should check if our purchases do not contain pieces of nutshells for example. The consequences are severe, the customer will surely not buy its favourite chocolate bar for a few months now to avoid the peril, even though there are many different batches available at different stores. The damage is done, the company’s image has been harmed.

What can go wrong?

     Just this year, one of the world’s biggest food companies had found glass pieces in one of their products in South Africa, so they had to call for the return of the entire country’s supply of specific candies. The giant called the withdrawal “a voluntary and precautionary step” but both the brand image and therefore sales experienced a backlash. Moreover, if the contamination injured a customer, the company would have had a lawsuit coming their way.

     Not only tangible particles can contaminate food products. From time to time, it can be heard that some meats contained E. Coli or Salmonella. Such cases are the most dangerous ones, and sometimes even end with customers’ deaths. The aftermath is always terrible, thousands of people getting sick requiring medical attention, all of them filing lawsuits, and then years of court battles begin. Even the biggest multinationals can go bankrupt after such a disaster.

What to do?

 So how to maintain a clean slate these days? Well, it’s not that simple. When it comes to diseases and bacteria in food, the best way is just to be sure of the supplier. Many of successful companies introduced extra tests being done to employees monthly, making sure that no worker poses a contamination threat. It must be mentioned that proper pest control measures must be a routine, as well as thorough disinfection and cleaning of the operational equipment.

     On the other hand, the entire production lines in food industry include potential particle contamination risks. Avoiding those risks means conveying food pieces with high quality homogenous belts (eg. Soliflex) to leave no possibility of belt fragments becoming foreign bodies in the food. Soliflex belts from Ammeraal Beltech are made from a single piece of homogeneous plastic, thus it does not fray nor contaminate the food.

     Cleaning and sanitizing the Soliflex belts range reveals its additional safety benefits. Despite of requiring less water and time while cleaning, the Soliflex range can be installed on existing conveyors making it possible to be washed and deterged on the spot.

All in all, there are a few measures which companies must take to assure purity of the food products, it is required both by the brand image and ethics. Thankfully, all of which can be accessed through Ammeraal Beltech solutions.

Flat bed, rotary, digital or table – our 𝐀𝐦𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐭 𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦!

Offering extended lifetime thanks to outstanding chemical resistance, our printing blankets are tailored to meet the process requirements for textile printing across the entire spectrum of printing technologies.

AMMEGA’s performance in terms of corporate social responsibility reached the highest rating of PLATINUM medal granted by Ecovadis. This recognition with the highest score for AMMEGA’s actions and practices is the key information for all our stakeholders that AMMEGA acts responsibly and focuses on the improvement of business excellence.

Ecovadis is a rating agency that evaluates suppliers’ actions and practices in terms of their corporate social responsibility. Companies are awarded under four themes: the environment, social activities, ethics and the supply chain. The assessment is made using a comprehensive methodology based on international standards.

Customers take many steps to make their supply chain as transparent as possible in these aspects. They use the Ecovadis platform for this, and we want to remain the first choice for our customers, we want to actively engage in creating a responsible business in the world by offering customers transparent and fair cooperation.

For more information on Ecovadis, please check www.ecovadis.com.

Ammeraal Beltech launches its innovative new design facilitation and knowledge resource, the EP uniTool, as part of an ongoing strategy to better serve its customers. As part of an ongoing digital strategy, Ammeraal Beltech has created a new resource that allows its engineers to correctly dimension conveyor belts for any application faster and more accurately than ever before, harnessing decades of experience and knowhow across the widest possible range of applications.

   Den last Food Industry article introduced some potential food safety threats and the importance of health standards on site. Nevertheless, the food safety topic is vast and one brief text can only cover so much. Therefore, this week, we shall take a closer look at specific industry’s areas and their biggest requirements when it comes to preserving customers’ health.

Bakery

   A sandwich is a go-to breakfast of millions, this makes the bread one of the most demanded products in the world. Well, it’s not a surprise since there’s nothing better than a scent of a warm bread. So, what is the biggest hurdle of making bread? Cross-contamination! To be more precise, it is the risk of exposing the belt and product surfaces, intentionally or not, to the drops, taints and splashes from other food products, as well as other hazards in form of a liquid or dust. To avoid it, the producer must keep the equipment and its components clean and sterile, not to mention introducing worker health measures. The handling of bread dough is a sticky business. Hence, it is utmost important to use surfaces which minimise the bacteria growth, such as Homogeneous Belts, Anti-Microbial Belts, Non-fray Belts and Light Blue Belts, and which are especially designed to release the dough easily eventually with the additional feature of scrapping. Scrapping is a process of physical removal of leftovers from the belt’s top cover, however the constant interaction between the two can decrease the lifespan of the equipment, this is why Ammeraal Beltech has developed ultra-durable and metal detectable scrapping product UltraScraper.

Kød & Fjerkræ

   There is nothing more wasteful than meat going spoiled. During its processing, dirty environment with presence of blood, fat and bones can effectively pollute the product. For that reason, one can say, it is mandatory to use surfaces which will never soak or hold any contaminants from previously handled meats, even after the sanitation. Moreover, belts can develop cracks, either by extensive usage or contact with sharp edged bones for example. Then the food particles get into those cracks, grooves and cavities to slowly spoil the entire batch. The whole incident of replacing belts and recalling the batch is expensive. It is much cheaper to invest in solutions with which the above-mentioned problems do not occur. Nonex Food Grade processing Ammeraal Beltech belts are crack-free food grade belts which are characterised by excellent sanitation standards and utterly long lifespan, enabling its users to never face the problem of meat going bad.

Fisk & Skaldyr

   Fresh fish scent is not bad whatsoever. So, how come sometimes we purchase a cod, and it’s a smelly one? Speed is the answer. Naturally, the sanitisation and antibacterial measures are very important when handling any food, but in Fish & Seafood industry there is also an obligation of the handling processes to be swift. Otherwise, the tender fish meat will slowly begin its decay before reaching freezers or cooling boxes. Ammeral Beltech’s uni MPB was created to not only outperform all sanitary standards, but also to cut down the time needed for maintenance. Quick belt replacement is assured by especially designed 8mm diameter pins, as well as drainage properties keep the cleaning fast while saving water. With this solution, the only smelly fish on a supermarket’s shelf will be the infamous surströmming.

The obvious conclusion

   All in all, when we compare the three food sectors in this article, we can deduce that sanitation and trouble-free equipment are key factors of food safety, no matter the exact segment. Thankfully, these days, conveying solution providers, such as Ammeraal Beltech, understand food companies’ needs completely and implement ever-modernising systems that keep the product fresh and free of foreign bodies.

Ammeraal Beltech, a global leader in the design, manufacture and service of process and conveyor belting solutions, is excited to announce a new range of belts for the Sugar Industry, designed specifically to prevent cross contamination, enhance food safety, and minimise workplace risk. The new Arcon belts comply to all standards and regulations; they’re EU and FDA food grade certified, approved for ATEX Category II, and flame-retardant and anti-static for full operational safety. What’s more, they’re engineered to last under demanding conditions, and come with covers that are highly resistant to impact and abrasion, all of which means they deliver full product protection against any foreign body migration.

Ammeraal Beltech’s new long-lasting Arcon range is designed with Sugar Industry standards and requirements in mind. Sugar is abrasive, and all the belting equipment used in the sugar industry needs to be tough enough to operate in that environment and remain undamaged, so that nothing compromises product purity. Arcon belts can do that and more; they’re constructed of low-weight synthetic material combined with strong polyester fibres for greater flexibility and durability, and the easy-to-clean covers are highly abrasion-resistant, guaranteeing not only food safety but longer belt life as well. At the same time, since sugar processing carries with it risks of fire and explosion, the Arcon belts and all their accessories (such as tracking ropes and carriers) are flame-retardant to ISO 340 standards and anti-static as well, meeting ATEX Category II requirements for equipment operating in potentially explosive environments.

A focus on safety does not, however, mean any compromise on accuracy, dependability and efficiency. The Arcon range reflects the commitment that Ammeraal Beltech has always made to quality, safety and performance. The reliability in operation, the long working life and the low weight for more energy efficiency make Arcon belts the best choice in terms of economics and productivity, while the full scope of the range’s safety features helps protect the consumer, the manufacturer, the workers and their workplace.