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Pneumatic tech significantly improves equipment performance

26th August 2016

By: Robyn Wilkinson

Features Reporter

  

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South African start-up Magnevane, assisted by consulting firm Deloitte, is introducing a design that significantly improves the performance of pneumatic engines by using high-powered magnets in air motor applications.

Magnevane is currently running four pilots at large South African companies and is pursuing opportunities in Canada, Europe and the US.

The company’s technology can be used to retrofit existing equipment, such as drills, hoists, saws, gunnite machines, mixers, pumps and grinders, essentially upgrading them and, thereby, greatly improving torque and power. During a trial with a large South African miner, Magnevane was, for example, able to increase the performance of a pneumatic chainsaw by over 600% without increasing the equipment’s air consumption, by simply replacing its air motor with Magnevane’s upgraded version.

Deloitte consultant Gareth Rees believes that this significant increase in performance makes it possible to improve productivity across many industries where pneumatic motors are used, including the mining, pulp and paper, transport, manufacturing and oil and gas sectors.

“Deloitte has long serviced these sectors and has increasingly seen the need to seek out low-risk, high-impact innovations on behalf of our clients and assist in reducing the friction impeding the implementation of such innovations. This has led the company to develop an innovation division that looks to rapidly commercialise high-potential new ventures,” he explains.

Rees highlights that one of the main focuses for this division has been to improve efficiency and productivity in the mining sector, with the commodities down cycle having a profound impact on primarily resource-driven economies such as South Africa’s. The problem is further aggravated by other issues, such as declining ore grades, dwindling productivity and the increasing cost of doing business, which are fast putting companies out of business.

“For half a decade, heavy industry has countered this down cycle with relentless cost cutting that often goes past the fat and deep into the muscle of a business. This has, in many cases, resulted in a dearth of capacity to do much beyond keeping the lights on, which has seriously impacted the introduction of innovation. As an imminent turning of the global commodities cycle is unlikely, Deloitte aims to introduce innovation that will increase productivity while also assisting in the development of cost-cutting strategies,” says Rees.

He stresses that introducing novel approaches is, however, easier said than done, and points out that “the closets of many large industrials have one or two expensive innovation skeletons in them and, in this austere environment, executives are loath to repeat these mistakes”.

He further adds that the relentless focus on safety at all costs is more likely to promote the employment of tried and tested technologies over the new and uncertain, no matter the benefits.

Businesses, especially large companies, are generally not good early adopters of new technology and are often quite slow to embrace innovations until they have been demonstrated in their operating environment. This, states Rees, creates a difficult situation for companies that have developed novel solutions, even if they have been proven to be highly effective.

Therefore, over the past six months, Magnevane has implemented its strategy, which involves running pilot projects at large blue chip industrial companies to demonstrate in real time the performance claims of its technology, before seeking to secure offtake agreements.

Rees highlights that the results of these trials have been extremely impressive, achieving triple-digit increases to torque and notable growth in power output and efficiency.

For instance, Magnevane’s trials have shown that its technology can operate at a level comparable to its tested incumbents’ but at as low as half the pressure, while more than doubling maintenance intervals.

Rees says large high-pressure pneumatic networks lose significant air pressure through concealed and inaccessible leaks, so the lower the pressure in these networks, the lower the loss to leaks.

He explains that, if all equipment on a pneumatic line could be replaced with a technology such as that of Magnevane’s, the electricity savings generated by keeping large air compressors off load would be significant. As an example, Rees cites thata large South African miner can spend over R300-million on electricity each year just to run the air compressors for its pneumatic networks, so reducing this pressure can be a big cost saver.

Meanwhile, at other mines, productivity is the key metric, as it can take up to two hours to transport mineworkers to the rock face using lifts owing to the depth of the operation.

“Depending on the nature of the problem, Magnevane can create either high-efficiency or high-performance engines, or combinations of both. From humble beginnings in Mbombela, in Nelspruit, Magnevane has developed technology that has the potential to take on global pneumatics giants,” says Rees.

Edited by Tracy Hancock
Creamer Media Contributing Editor

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