I took a phone call recently from an artist who applies thin colored films to glass sheets. He then uses several panes of that colored glass to build beautiful simplistic art installations! They are so clean and clear every angle you look through you get a different color and view you wouldn’t expect. But he was having a problem, these sheets of glass were building a large static charge and making every bit of dust and dirt stick to the surface. They were spending countless hours painstakingly cleaning every panel of glass because one spec of dirt would ruin the end goal.
Originally they called in to look at the Super Air Knife, which is good to remove dirt, dust and debris – but does not eliminate static if that debris were to be held on to the glass with static. His idea was to poor water on the glass then use the Super Air Knife to blow the water off, messy but they were hoping to kill two birds with one stone. Getting rid of the static and cleaning the glass all at once. He was excited when I told him about out our GEN4 Super ION Air Knife! It would have the ability to neutralize the static charge and blow away any debris clinging to the surface.
The Gen4 Super Ion Air Knife floods an area or surface with static eliminating ions. With a uniform airflow across its length, misalignment to critical surfaces, like a web, is avoided. The force can be adjusted from a light breeze, to a full out blast of air. The Gen4 Super Ion Air Knife is electrically powered, is shockless and has no moving parts.
How It Works
In the diagram above, compressed air flows through an inlet (1) into the plenum chamber of the Gen4 Super Ion Air Knife. The flow is directed to a precise, slotted orifice. As the primary airflow exits, it creates a uniform sheet of air across the entire length, pulling in in surrounding air (2). An electrically powered Gen4 Ionizing Bar (3) fills the curtain of air with positive and negative charges. The air stream delivers the static eliminating ions to the product surface (4) where it instantly neutralizes static and cleans off dust and other particulates.
The Gen4 Super Ion Air Knives are powerful tools, and very quickly dissipates 5kV of static even at low compressed air supply pressures. At 5 PSIG, only 3.7 SCFM (0.3 BAR, only 105 SLPM) of compressed air per foot of length is required!! Sound levels are also very low, resulting in quiet operation.
Added Features –
- Compressed Air Inlets are provided on each end and the bottom of the Super Air Knife
- Thicker shims can be installed easily if more force is needed.
- Emitter points are durable stainless steel
- The high voltage cable is armored to resist cuts and abrasion, and has integral grounding. Threaded bayonet connector is fully assembled and ready to use
- Electromagnetically shield cable protects sensitive electronics
- Gen4 Ionizing Bars and Power Supplies are UL Component Recognized to U.S and Canadian safety standards and are CE and RoHS compliant
- Power Supplies are 115/230 VAC selectable and come with 2 or 4 outlets
- Standard lengths from 3″ to 108″ (76mm to 2743mm) are offered, and custom lengths are available to meet your process needs
Successful applications include web cleaning, pre-paint dust removal, shrink wrapper machinery, printing equipment, package cleaning,and bag opening/filling operations.
If you have questions about Gen4 Super Ion Air Knives, other types of Static Elimination products, or any of the 16 different EXAIR Intelligent Compressed Air® Product lines, feel free to contact EXAIR and myself or any of our Application Engineers can help you determine the best solution.
Jordan Shouse
Application Engineer
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Image courtesy of Jared Yeh Rainbow Panorama, Creative Commons License Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)