It was within the Gypsum industry that we first introduced our new sonic horn technologies. At that time Synthetic Gypsum, or DSG, was replacing naturally mined gypsum. It was soon evident that the power plant process whereby environmentally damaging sulphur dioxide gases were passed through a limestone (calcium carbonate) scrubber which absorbed these gases, converting the limestone into calcium sulphate, produced a material which varied greatly in flowability, largely due to its increased moisture content.

Silos which used to store natural gypsum, struggled to cope with synthetic gypsum/DSG. One of our first opportunities to prove the debonding power of our acoustic cleaners arose when we were asked to both prevent side wall material build up and maintain maximum mass flow onto the sweeper discharge system on two large flat bottom silos.

The DSG was hanging up on the side walls clogging the level problems, also bridging over the sweep augers. This necessitated dangerous manual entry on a weekly basis. After cleaning each silo, we installed a Primasonics® 75 Hz Sonic Horn on top of the two silos using existing hatches.

The result was immediate, mass flow without any side wall build up along with maximum material discharge, thus eliminating the need for manual entry.

Since then we have been eliminating DSG build up and flow problems in gypsum plant silos and hoppers around the world.

Gypsum discharge is also a problem solved by the installation of an acoustic horn as can be seen in the photograph below, when pure 'brute force' fails to improve DSG flow on this Australian discharge hopper, a single Primasonics® Acoustic Cleaner totally solved the problem.

There are many other areas within Gypsum Plants where our Sonic Horns can successfully be employed with tremendous results. For example within all types of bag house filter plants. The photo on the left shows a typical acoustic cleaner installation on an internal bag house filter.

By installing the correct model of acoustic cleaner the following benefits are attainable:

• Significantly increase bag life
• Improve the continued operation of the filter plant
• Significantly reduce the level of reverse jet pulsing required, thus reducing the compressed air usage
• Eliminating cross contamination within the baghouse by cleaning the side walls etc. eliminating hopper pluggage by ensuring that all material exits the hopper.

Likewise such process plant as - ID Fans, Mixers, Cyclones & Ducting can all benefit from the installation on sonic horn technologies with low cost and minimal maintenance.