At Omega Sinto, we have almost 40 years of experience in the foundry equipment manufacturing industry, specialising in chemically bonded mould production equipment. We have a large variety of products, including sand mixers, mould handling equipment, core making machines, shakeouts, sand reclamation plants, and coating plants. Sand reclamation is thus an integral part of our manufacturing process; but what is it, and why is it so important? Our handy information article has everything you need to get to grips with the basics of sand reclamation and its range of benefits.
Waste foundry sand and sand reclamation
In order to appreciate the purpose of sand reclamation, it’s important to start with what waste foundry sand is; this is sand that has already been used once before in the casting process, and has been contaminated with other casting elements such as residual binder, metal, ceramics etc. Sand reclamation consists of the cleaning of the waste sand by removing these contaminants, grading, and cooling for further use.
Processes
The processes involved in sand reclamation are either physical or thermal, of these, the most popular category is mechanical reclamation or ‘attrition’, including primary and secondary plants.
As the name suggests, this process utilises specialist machinery to reduce to grain size the sand post knockout. By using a combination of vibration attrition and mechcinal ‘rubbing’ the sand is reduced to grain size and cleaned simultaneously. The number of contaminants left on the sand grain will depend on various factors, such as; the sand to metal radio, type of binder and the mechcinal reclamation techniques utilised.
For certain applications it is necessary to remove a 100% of the residual binder, and in this instance thermal reclamation is utilised. This technique not only gives sand with a lower gas content than new sand, but also males the sand more thermally stable and can reduce castings defects associated with silica expansion.
The benefits
With the increasing pressure to reduce manufacturing costs, it can be daunting at first to invest in sand reclamation processes and equipment, due to the capital costs. However, the advantages of doing so enable the expense of the initial investments to be regained, normally within a short amount of time.
An environmentally friendly option
Sand plays a vital role in the building and construction industries, due to its use in concrete and asphalt. Its popularity has resulted in a worldwide shortage of sand in recent years. Therefore, by taking the responsible step to reduce your business’ environmental footprint, the finite amount of sand that is available to use does not deteriorate as quickly.
Reduces costs in the long-term
Sand reclamation permits your business to avoid spending increasingly exorbitant amounts on fresh sand over the coming years – not only is this a sustainability win, but further minimises avoidable spending by eliminating transportation and disposal costs.
Quality assurance
Quality assurance is a benefit of sand reclamation that often goes unappreciated. With greater control and supervision over your raw materials, casting qualities improve, solidifying your customers’ confidence in your reliable top-quality products.
Omega Sinto is a world class manufacturer of chemically bonded sand equipment. Our engineering teams are able to supervise large international projects as well as smaller foundry installations or upgrades. Contact us on +44 (0)1733 232231 or by email at
[email protected] to find out how we can help your vision come to life today.