Customer Requirements
Nanocyl S.A. was established in Sambreville, Belgium with the goal of becoming the leading global manufacturer of specialty and industrial Carbon Nanotubes. Nanocyl has become one of the key players in its industry with a production capacity of over 40 tons per year.
– Further capacity increases are being planned to meet customer demand.
40 people are employed at its production facility in Sambreville and in their North American office in Alpharetta, Georgia.
– They manufacturer a full range of Carbon Nanotubes including single-walled, double-walled and multi-walled versions.
– The preferred manufacturing method is catalytic carbon vapor deposition (CCVD), which is currently best adapted to large-scale production.
– Nanocyl commercializes its products in the form of powders, pellets, liquid dispersions and films.
– Nanotubes are an emerging technology.
– They are expensive to manufacture and therefore command a high price in the market.
– High accuracy is essential in filling the bulk bags and 4.4lb/ 2kg packs.
What is a Carbon Nanotube?
– “Carbon Nanotube” is a tube-shaped material, made of carbon, with a diameter measuring on the nanometer scale.
– A nanometer is about one 0.0001 as thick as a human hair.
The measurement on individual tubes due to their intrinsic mechanical and transport properties position them as the ultimate carbon fibers. The best Carbon Nanotubes show a unique combination of stiffness, strength and tenacity compared to other fiber materials that usually lack one of these properties. Intrinsic thermal and electrical conductivity is also very high and comparable to other conductive materials.
Spiroflow Solution
Traditionally, for most industrial applications, Spiroflow offers Bulk Bag Fillers with weighing platforms that use weigh-scales or load-cells.
– Accuracies are typically +/- 2.2lb/ 1kg. To meet Nanocyl’s weighing accuracy requirement of +/- 0.7oz/ 20g. Spiroflow engineers decided to successfully adopt the ‘hang-weighing’ principle for this application.
– The highly sensitive load cells would be mounted high up in the filler, completely out of harm’s way.
