Preventing Equipment Corrosion in a Limestone Quarry
Conveyor roller bearings were constantly exposed to limestone dust and water, a damaging combination that reduced bearing lifespan to between two and six months.
It’s easy to see where the potential risks were for the quarry. Its conveyors had 24 bearings that were constantly exposed to dust and water, causing extensive wear. Every couple of months the operation would have to shut down while all 24 bearings were replaced. This meant that all work had to come to a stop ... and, for every hour that the quarry was on pause, it cost the company a minimum of $5,000. And, replacing 24 bearings on a conveyor system is not a quick job. It takes time to pull the old bearings out, clean the threads, get the new bearings in place and get the entire conveyor belt system operational again. Together with the cost of parts and labor, the total adds up quickly. The pressure was really on to find a longer-lasting more coat-effective solution.
Over a two day period, the Enviropeel team coated all twenty four of those bearings.
Enviropeel is spray applied, allowing it to penetrate every part of the substrate and completely encapsulate it in a protective, flexible coating. Once it’s been applied, it only takes seconds to set ... and the results in the limestone quarry were incredible.
Right now, the Enviropeel that we applied over a year ago is still in use. There is no sign of wear and tear to the coating, which has held up beautifully under the harsh conditions of the mine. The protected bearings show zero signs of deterioration. That's between two to five times as long as they’d been experiencing ... and that’s just so far.
We expect the coating to extend the lifespan of the bearings for much longer. In fact, barring any sort of damage to the coating or other accidents, it coat last for the lifetime of the equipment.
In total, the benefits of applying Enviropeel to those 24 bearings will save the company tens of thousands of dollars in the first year. Over the lifetime of the product, it will be exponentially more. Typically, savings from using Enviropeel average about 500% but, in areas with high levels of contamination, it can be more than 100%. That's a pretty good return on investment!
The quarry managers were so impressed with the results of the Enviropeel application that they’ve begun to use it in other locations across the United States.
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The Enviropeel mobile unit, shown below, delivers application units and material to site.
Enviropeel to the rescue
What that means for the company
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Less downtime. Employees no longer have to wait for the conveyor belt to be back up and running.
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Greater production. With fewer stoppages, the company is able to produce more and get it out of the mines faster.
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Less money spent on replacement parts. A bearing might not be the most expensive piece of equipment in the mine, but replacing 24 of them as many as six times a year soon adds up.
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Less money spent on labor. Someone has to be paid to replace those bearings ... which means paying money out when there's none coming in.
Enviropeel put a stop to that!
