The final piece of Atlas Copco’s coolant cleaning puzzle

Atlas Copco is a global manufacturer of industrial tools and equipment. They have a 150-year history of perfecting cutting-edge machinery for industries all over the world. And their dedication to improving industrial processes extends to their own factories as well. Such was the case in Atlas Copco’s factory in Tierp, where they turned to Alfa Laval to improve their coolant cleaning system.

The plant, called Tierpverken, operates about 150 machines daily to produce electric air compressors and other equipment. They had already used one of Alfa Laval’s small size separators, Alfie 500, on a coolant cleaning line for a few years. Impressed by the performance of the compact, mobile machine, Atlas Copco decided to acquire the high-capacity automatic separator, AlfaPure, for their grinding department. With AlfaPure , they managed to optimize their coolant cleaning process, reducing costs and environmental impact across the entire plant, and even benefitting the factory’s work environment.

Reduced efficiency by using filters

Like most manufacturers, Atlas Copco uses coolants in their machining process. After some time of usage, coolants become mixed with metal particles and oil. Having lost their characteristics, the coolants need to be cleaned. At Tierpverken, the system for cleaning the coolants for the production machines was a complex one, containing mainly filters. Filters only cleanse the coolants of particles, but they do not remove, for example, tramp oil i.e. mainly solid separation. Furthermore, the workers on the plant had to manually replace the filters on a regular basis to maintain the cleaning system. The same goes for the fluid itself which, even though it’s cleaned and reused, loses quality over time and needs to be replaced.

In the long-term, continually buying new filters and coolants is not a sustainable strategy for the manufacturing plant in Tierp. It’s costly both in terms of the total ownership cost (TCO) and environmental impact. Particularly as regulations are becoming stricter in relation to using chemicals in production sites.

A “self-playing piano” optimizes the system

After several years of successfully using the small-size separator Alfie 500 on a cleaning line, Atlas Copco turned to provider Alfa Laval to optimize their coolant cleaning system and prepare it for the future. Alfa Laval went ahead and implemented an AlfaPure, a large-capacity automatic separator, into the CNC coolant system, a centralized system which supplies coolants to 11 CNC machines. This automatic separator cleans the coolant of the tramp oil as well as the metal particles, including particles that filters cannot clean. More importantly, it cleans itself through a flushing mechanism. Thus, solving the issue of using extra filters to keep the coolant clean and removing manual labour that came with their previous system.

“AlfaPure has been almost like a self-playing piano. We remove tramp oils every other day, and that’s it. We have been running the machine for almost 10 months and it’s been running perfectly, 24 hours a day. The quality of the coolant is considerably better now that we have installed the separator as a complement compared to when we only used filters.”
- Tobias Åström, Maintenance Engineer, Atlas Copco

With AlfaPure’s efficient cleaning capabilities, the quality of the coolant significantly improves, and its lifecycle increases sixfold. Moreover, AlfaPure even contributes to the work environment, thanks to its ability to remove fine particles from fluids. Bacterial growth is a common issue in industrial environments and causes a pungent smell, typically known as Monday morning odour. The bacterial growth can also contribute to lung issues and skin infections among workers who may come in direct contact with it. However, as the tramp oil and particles that give rise to the bacterial growth are thoroughly removed by the AlfaPure, the plant workers can return to a more agreeable workplace after long weekends.