IMPROVED POWDER SPRAY BOOTH APPARATUS

Abstract: A spray booth for applying powder coating to substrates includes a self contained recovery/filter system (11) located beneath the floor of the booth (10), the recovery/filter system removably attached to the booth so that another recovery­ filter system may be conveniently substituted when chang­ ing spray powders, or to facilitate cleaning or repair of the recovery system. The recovery/filter system is so constructed that there are no restrictions in the air flow passages (43) between the booth and the recovery/filter system, with the result that there are no confined areas wherein fires may cause explosions. Powder is collected in air slides (48) located in the bottom of the recovery/filter system. The air slides transfer the collected powder via a sloping fluidized bed (59) to air transfer pumps (52) which are operative to convey the collected powder back to a recycle system.

Description: AN IMPROVED POWDER SPRAY BOOTH APPARATUS The invention relates generally to powder coating art, and more particularly relates to a powder spray booth and powder recovery system. In the practice of powder coating, a powdered resin is applied to a substrate, and then the substrate and powder are heated so that the powder melts and when subsequently cooled, forms a solid continuous coating on the substrate. The powder is generally sprayed onto the substrate. An electrostatic charge is generally applied to the sprayed powder so as to enhance the quantity of powder which attaches to the substrate and to assist in retaining the powder on the substrate. These electrostatic powder spraying techniques are well known and widely practiced commercially. By and large, powder deposition is performed in a booth, a controlled area wherein any oversprayed powder which is not deposited on the substrate is collected. Conventionally, the containment of the powder in the booth is aided by an exhaust system which creates a negative pressure within the booth and causes the oversprayed powder to be drawn out of the booth to powder recovery filtering devices. In some systems, the oversprayed powder is collected and is merely saved for future use, while in others it is recycled automatically to the application device. In very nearly all powder spray applications though, the oversprayed material must be collected and recycled since it generally represents substantially more than half of the sprayed material. Collection of the oversprayed material generally involves entraining the oversprayed powder in an air stream withdrawn from the powder booth, conveying that powder entrained air stream to a powder recovery system and there separating the powder from the air. Commonly, the separation is effected by some form of filter or cyclone separation. One of the most critical aspects of all powder recovery systems is that of avoiding explosions of the powder conveying and recovery equipment. Very nearly all burnable powders, when entrained in air in burnable concentrations, are subject to burning and explosion and powdered resins or paints are no exception. The powder spray booth of this invention eliminates explosion hazards by venting the powder recovery system and the powder collection chamber of the system back into the spray booth without any substantial air flow restrictions between the powder collection chamber and the spray booth. Consequently, if a fire does occur in the spray booth, and spread to the powder recovery chamber, there is no opportunity for an explosion because there is no place within the system for a pressure build up and consequent explosion. The powder spray booth of this invention collects oversprayed powder in an air stream withdrawn from the bottom of the booth and then turned and conveyed upwardly through a filter chamber to a clean air chamber. Beneath the filter chamber there are air slides within which the oversprayed powder is collected, fluidized, and flowed to a venturi pump operative to return the collected powder to a recycle system. There has been a problem with powder spray booths of this type because of the difficulty of moving the collected powder into the powder pump. Heretofore, the powder has simply been collected in a funnel shaped hopper operative to flow the collected powder downwardly into the pump. Often times though, and particularly when spraying high density powders, the powder has had a tendency to collect and build on the walls of the hopper rather than falling by gravity or being drawn into the powder pump. To overcome this problem, the invention of this application eliminates the hopper and substitutes instead a fluidized bed air slide operative to fluidize the collected powder and flow it to the pump. In general then, this invention provides an improved spray booth/recovery system which provides improved safety relative to prior art systems and which overcomes the problem of powder collecting upon the walls of the hopper of the recovery system. The improved powder spray booth of this invention comprises a spray booth having an attached powder recovery system which in the preferred embodiment is located underneath the floor of the booth. The recovery system comprises a powder collection chamber below the booth, and a clean air chamber sealed from the booth and from the powder collection chamber, but being provided with an opening from the collection chamber into the clean air chamber through static filters. A blower is provided to create-negative pressure in the chamber so that powder laden air is drawn down through the opening in the floor of the booth into the collection area immediately below the booth, and thence upward through filters to the clean air chamber. This filtered air having only traces of fine powder in a non-explosive ratio, is withdrawn from the clean air chamber through the blower, and passed to an absolute filter for final filtering. The powder collection chamber is open to the interior of the spray booth through a relatively unrestricted opening so that any fire in the powder collection chamber is directly vented into the booth without any significant restriction therebetween. The bottom of the powder collection chamber is defined by a plurality of sloping wall, fluidized bed air slides, the bottoms of which are open to powder pumps operative to pump the collected powder back to a recycle system. The primary advantage of this invention is that it more effectively and safely collects and recycles powders and particularly high density powders which have heretofore presented collection problems. The invention will now be further described by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings in which: Figure 1 is a perspective view of a spray coating booth having a recovery/collection system in accordance with the invention, Figure 2 is a partially diagrammatic cross sectional view illustrating the interior construction of the recovery/collection system of the booth of Figure 1, Figure 3 is an enlarged cross sectional view of a circled portion of the recovery/collection system illustrated in Figure 2. Figure 4 is a cross sectional view taken on line 4-4 of Figure 2. Referring first to Figure 1, a system incorporating the invention of this application comprises a spray booth 10 having a base 11, which comprises the filter/recovery system for the powder, and an absolute filter 12 connected to the base 11 through ductwork 13. The ductwork 13 connects on either side of one end of the base 11 by means of quick-disconnect connections 14 to holes 15 (see Figure 2) in the base. This ductwork 13 communicates the interior of the base 11 to a blower 16 which creates a negative pressure in the base 11 as will be more fully discussed later. The blower 16 exhausts into a plenum 17 having filters 18 which clean any air discharged therethrough. The blower 16 can be mounted on abase 19 for convenience. The spray booth 10 defines a controlled area for spraying powder and comprises generally a ceiling portion 25, opposed side wall portions 26, opposed end walls 27 and a floor area 28. The floor area 28, in this embodiment, actually comprises the top of the base or recovery/collector unit 11 and hence the two elements are designated by a common reference numeral herein. The booth 10 is supported by legs 29 over the base 11. Openings are provided in one of the side walls 26 of the booth 10 and both end walls 27. The opening 30 in one side wall 26 provides access into the interior of the booth 10 for spraying equipment, or for access for a man to enter the booth himself. Openings 31 are provided in each end wall 27 for product to be transported through the booth 10 for spraying. A slot 32 in the ceiling portion 25 of the booth allows the passage of conveyor hooks or the like from an overhead conveyor (not shown) to carry the articles to be coated (not shown) through the booth 10. Referring now to Figures 2, 3 and 4, the details of the base or recovery/filter unit 11 of the booth 10 can be seen. The base 11 is generally comprised of opposed exterior side walls 36, end walls 37, the upper wall 28, and a bottom wall 38. As noted above, the upper wall 28 also forms the floor of the booth. Along each of the opposed side walls 36 of the booth 10, defined between part of an exterior side wall 36 of the base, the upper wall 28 of the base, part of an inner side wall 40 and a bottom chamber wall 41. Filter chambers 42 are located below these clean air chambers 39, the chambers 42 being defined by the walls 36, 37, 40 and 41. The holes 15 in one end wall 37 connect each clean air chamber 39 to the ductwork 13 (see Figure 1), so that a negative pressure may be created in the clean air chamber 39. The interior side wall 40 extends downward from the floor 28 and forms a centrally located air flow passage 43 directly from the booth to a powder collection area including a pair of powder collection chambers 47 located on opposite sides of passage 43. The centrally located air flow passage 43 is elongated in the direction of travel of the articles to be coated and extend across the whole length of-the booth 10. It is of substantial crosssectional area so as not to present a restriction which would result in a "confined area" subject to explosion. Each clean air chamber 39 is provided with multiple holes 49 on the underside through the bottom walls 41. Each of these holes 49 is capped by a static cartridge type filter 50. The filters 50 can be removably attached to the chamber 39 by any suitable means. In this embodiment the holes in the bottom wall 41 of the clean air chamber 39, and associated filter elements 50, are arranged in three banks of six filters on each side of the unit so that there is a total of 18 filters to each side, 36 liters in all. In the plane of Figure 2, four filters 50 can be seen, two on each side. Below each of the six bands of filters, the bottom 38 of the base 11 tapers downward into six openings 51. Each of these openings 51 is capped by an air slide 48 within which oversprayed powder or powder filtered out of the air by the filters 50 is collected. At the outer end of each air slide 48 is a venturi pump 52 or other suitable means to receive the powder from the hopper and to transport the collected powder to a recycling system which may be in the form of a storage bin or may be directed back to the spray gun from which the powder was originally ejected into the booth. The air slides 48 are each provided around their upper edges with a laterally extending flange 57, which flange is secured by bolts (not shown) to a correspondingly shaped flange 58 which extends outwardly from the bottom openings 51 of the base 11. Between the flanges 57 of the hopper and the flanges 58 of the base 11, there is preferably a seal or gasket (not shown). Each air slide 48 comprises an outwardly and downwardly sloping bottom wall 59 surrounded by side walls 60 which extend between the bottom wall 59 and the edge of flange 57. The bottom wall 59 is formed from an air pervious membrane so that air may be forced upwardly through the bottom wall 59 to fluidise powder contained within the air slide, as explained more fully hereinafter. Beneath the bottom wall 59 of each air slide 48 there is a closed air chamber 54 formed by side walls 55 and a bottom wall 56. Around the top edges of the side walls 55 of each air chamber, there is a flange 53 (see Figure 3) which is secured by bolts and nuts 61 to a flange 62, the flange 62 extends outwardly from the bottom edges of the side walls 60 of the air slide 48. The outer edges of the air pervious bottom wall 59 of the air slide is sandwiched between these flanges 53, 62. Air at, a pressure above that of the atmosphere is supplied to the closed air chamber 54 from an air pressure source 54A. This air pressure flows from the source through pressure regulators 54R to an air inlet port in the side wall of each chamber 54. This air pressure passes upwardly through the air pervious bottom wall membrane where it is operative to fluidise any powder or load within the interior of the air slide. Because the bottom wall 59 of the air slide slopes outwardly, preferably at an angle of approximately five degrees, the fluidised powder tends to move outwardly toward an outlet conduit 54C which connects the interior of the air slide to one of the venturi pumps 52. Interiorly of the clean air chamber 39, venturi throats 63 are situated above and around each of the holes 49 through which filtered air passes. A series of pipes 64 extend across the base 11, one each in alignment with all four of the venturi throats 63, and hence the filters 50, across in a row. Each of the pipes 64 has four holes (as at 65) in its underside which are aligned one each with a respective venturi throat 63. An air solenoid 66 associated with each pipe 64 and mounted exteriorly of one outside wall 36 is effective to discharge a 15 to 20 millisecond burst of air into a respective pipe 64, and thus out of the holes 65 in the underside of the pipe 64 into each venturi throat 63. The burst causes momentary reverse air flow through the filters 50, and dislodges collected powder from the filter material. The dislodged powder falls into a respective air slide 48. The solenoids 66 are sequentially operated through any suitable control mechanism well known in the art, so that only one bank or row is cleaned at a time. Therefore, there is no net interruption of the air flow through the filter/collector unit 11. Access doors 70 are mounted on the exterior side walls 36 for servicing or replacing the filters 50. The whole base 11 is mounted on wheels 71 to allow the base 11 to be easily removed from underneath the spray booth 10, so that a new base 11 can be substituted therefor in order to facilitate the spraying of a new powder or colour, or to service the unit. It should be noted that the quantity or type of filter 50 is selected in this embodiment to achieve improved filter cleaning capabilities. It has been noted that the velocity of powder burdened air penetrating the filters 50 is directly related to the total surface area of a filter or banks of filters 50. An increased filter surface area was found to be particularly desirable to reduce powder penetration into the filtering elements of the filters 50 because the velocity of the air across the filter medium was substantially reduced. This facilitates cleaning by blow-back or reverse air flow as hereinbefore described. Also the reduced velocity achieved by increased surface area of the filters 50 minimises the amount of powder that returns to the surface of each filter 50 after a reverse air burst. and The filters 50 individually/collectively thus operate more efficiently while minimising powder build-up in the filtering area. Overall air flow through the collection chamber is thus maintained. In turn the efficiency of the fan or blower 16 is sustained along with that of the overall booth 10. In this particular embodiment, each of the numbers and type of filters is selected so that the velocity of the air passing therethrough is about 1.8 feet per minute for an air flow through the booth 1 and fan 4 of about 1.8 cubic feet per minute. In operation of the booth 10 and powder recovery unit 11, the blower 16 is first activated so as to create a negative pressure in the clean air chamber 39 and thereby cause air flow inwardly from outside the booth through the side wall opening 30, end wall openings 31, and conveyor opening 32 at the top of the booth. This air flow, after passing through the booth, flows downwardly through the floor of the booth via central air flow passage 43, around the bottom 44 of the interior side walls 40, and into the powder collection areas 47. The air flow then is caused to change in direction substantially 1800 from the generally downward direction in which it is moving as it flows past the bottom edge 44 of the side walls 40 into an upwardly directed air flow into the filter chambers 42 through the filters 50, and into the clean air chambers 39. The clean air is then caused to flow through the ductwork 13 to and through the absolute filter 12 wherein any residual powder which has passed through the filter 50 is extracted. The filter cartridges 50 are generally effective to extract more than 99% of the powder entering the powder recovery system 11 so that very little powder reaches the filters 18 of the absolute filter 12. Clean air is then exhausted from the absolute filter 12 back into the plant or to atmosphere. As soon as the air flow is initiated by the blower 16, the powder may be turned on and sprayed via a gun or any other conventional applicator into the booth and onto parts (not shown) as the parts are conveyed through the booth. Conventionally, the powder particles are c#harged with a very high voltage electrostatic charge and the parts are grounded. The electrostaticcharge increases the percentage of powder deposited onto the parts and assists in retaining those particles on the parts. All oversprayed powder is maintained in the booth via the incoming air flow through the booth openings. The oversprayed material either falls by gravity to the bottom of the booth or becomes entrained in the air flow moving downwardly in the booth into the central air flow passage 43. Most of the powder entering that passage 43 falls by gravity to the bottom of one of the air slides 48. A substantial portion of the airborne remainder of the powder is caused by a combination of gravity and centrifugal force to fall out of the air and collect in the bottom of the air slides 48 as the air flow is changed from a generally downward direction in the centre chamber 43 to an upward direction into the filters 50. A small percentage of the powder collects bn the exterior of the filter cartridges 50 and that surface collected powder is periodically removed from the surfaces by reverse burst of air flow through the air flow pipes 64 and holes 65 as was explained hereinabove. That short burst of reverse air flow, which burst in on the order of a fraction of a second in duration, causes any powder adhered to the cartridge to be dislodged and fall to the bottom of the air slides 48. Within the air slides, the powder is fluidised by air flow moving upwardly through the air pervious bottom wall 59 from the bottom air chamber 54. This fluidised powder gradually moves outwardly and downwardly over the sloping bottom wall of the air slides until, at the outer wall of the air slide, the powder is picked up by the venturi pump 52 and pumped back to a recycle system as is conventional in this art.

Claims: CLAIMS 1. A powder spray booth and collection apparatus comprising a booth (10) providing a partly enclosed controlled area for powder coating a substrate, a powder collection area (47) located underneath the booth, a passage (43) providing a substantially unrestricted air flow path between the booth and open powder collection area, an air chamber (39)/to the powder collection area through filter means (42) to prevent powder from entering the air chamber, characterised in that thepQrder collection area includes a downwardly sloping lower or bottom wall forming an air slide (48), means being provided to force air through the lower or bottom wall so as to fluidise powder collected thereon. 2. A powder spray booth and collection apparatus as claimed in Claim 1 wherein the air flow path within thepassage and the powder collection area undergoes a change of direction of substantially 1800. 3. A powder spray booth and collection apparatus as claimed in either Claim 1 or 2 wherein a blower (16) is provided to create a negative pressure in at least part of the apparatus to cause powder to flow through the passage (43) from the booth to the powder collection area. 4. A powder spray booth and powder recovery system configuration comprising booth means (10) providing a controlled area in which > powder coat substrates, defined generally by a ceiling, side and end walls, and a floor; a powder collection chamber (11) in close proximity to the booth; a substantially unrestricted flow path (43) leading directly from the powder collection chamber into the booth; a clean air chamber (39) sealed from the booth and from the powder collection chamber, the clean air chamber being provided with an opening from the powder collection chamber into the clean air chamber; static filter means (50) located within the powder collection chamber and operative. to effectively prevent powder from entering the clean air chamber; blower means (16) operative to create a negative pressure in the clean air chamber; the powder collection chamber including an air slide (48), the air slide having an air pervious bottom wall, the bottom wall sloping downwardly toward an end of the air slide; means for forcing air flow through the pervious bottom wall so as to fluidisepowder collected on the bottom wall in the powder collection chamber, and means for removing collected powder from said one end of the air slide. 5. A powder spray booth and powder recovery system as claimed in Claim 4 wherein the powder collection chamber includes an upper section and a lower section, the lower section including at least one air slide and the static filter means being located within the upper section. 6. A powder spray booth and powder recovery system as claimed in either Claim 4 or 5 in which the collected powder recovering means comprises a venturi pump. 7. A powder spray booth and powder recovery system as claimed in Claim 6 wherein the venturi pump transports collected powder from said one end of the air slide to a powder recycling system. 8. A powder spray booth and powder recovery system as claimed in any one of Claims 4 to 7 in which the means for forcing air flow through the pervious bottom wall of the air slide includes an air chamber located beneath the bottom wall and means for supplying air at a pressure above the atmospheric pressure to the air chamber. 9. A powder spray booth and powder recovery system comprising; a booth means providing a controlled area in which to powder coat substrates, defined generally by a ceiling area, at least two opposed side walls, and a floor area; and a powder recovery system comprising; a pair of powder collection chambers located in close proximity to the booth means, each of the powder collection chambers having an upper portion and a lower portion, the upper portion being located below the booth means, and each of the powder collection chambers having an elongated air flow passage communicating with the booth means; two clean air chambers, each of the clean air chambers being located immediately adjacent one of the powder collection chambers, the clean air chambers each having a multiplicity of individual openings thereinto to provide air flow paths from the collection chamber to the clean air chambers; static filter means associated with each of the openings into the clean air chambers to effectively filter out powder from the air passing therethrough into the clean air chambers; blower means to create a negative pressure in the clean air chambers, and to cause powder laden air to be drawn through the air flow passages into the powder collection chambers and thereafter through the filter means into the clean air chambers; the lower portions of the powder collection chambers including at least one air slide, the air slide having an air pervious bottom wall, the bottom wall sloping downwardly toward one end of the air slide; means for forcing air flow through the pervious botton wall so as to fluidise powder collected on the bottom wall in the powder collection chamber; and means for removing collected powder from said one end of the slide.

Inventors: LISSY, GUNTER J.
Applicants: NORDSON CORPORATION
Application year: 1981
Main classification: B05B15
IPC codes: B05B15, B01D46