It's in the bag!

British manufacturer of heat resistant castable refractories, Capital Refractories, has recently installed an automatic bag filling system as part of a planned switch to greener, more environmentally friendly packaging materials, coupled with a drive to reduce manual handling and provide improved working conditions for staff.

With a wide range of dense and highly abrasive cement-like materials for furnace lining and repair, Capital looked for a system which not only provided flexibility but offered reliability. After a careful selection process, the company opted for a complete line supplied by Concetti SpA of Bastia Umbra, Italy, comprised of a gravimetric dosing system, bag filling using continuous reels of gusseted tubular PE film and a robotic palletiser for automatic pallet stacking.

Line output is up to 440 x 25 kg bags per hour. The investment involved a switch from conventional paper valve bags with inner PE liners, which generally require disposal by landfill, to heavy gauge PE film, an easily recyclable single (mono) material, which is a major environmental benefit.

In addition, PE film allows the use of bright multi-colour printing to display Capital Refractories’ new corporate logo and branding.

The Concetti filling line also allows for the use of unperforated PE film, creating a hermetically sealed finished pack. This extends shelf life and further reduces waste by preventing moisture from impacting product quality if stored for prolonged periods at the user’s site.

The compact, highly integrated line is controlled from a single position, allowing the operator to choose from a series of programmes depending on product type. The selected programme automatically sets various parameters for dosing, filling and pallet stacking patterns. A feature of all Concetti systems is the absence of any spanner or manual adjustments between product changes.

Capital Refractories emphasised the need to ensure pallets were stacked wherever possible without perimeter overhang to avoid potential damage when loading ISO shipping containers serving vital overseas export markets. After initial tests, Concetti suggested reel width and gusset dimensions to provide the best finished pack sizes.

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