JS Humidifiers plc. U.K.
www.jshumidifiers.com

Industrial Humidification

Textile Humidification :

Correct humidity levels must be maintained in a production facility and storage area to prevent moisture loss from product , be it fibre , yarn or fabric , under production process or storage. This is possible by maintaining the required relative humidity of the inside ambient air of the production area which keeps the product in a moisture equilibrium with the conditioned air around it. The term moisture equilibrium refers to the relationship between the water content of the product and the relative humidity of the surrounding air , at which no further exchange of moisture takes place between the product and the air. The ambient temperature has an effect on this equilibrium moisture content (EMC).

Benefits from proper humidification :

+ Superior moisture regain levels in the product under process minimize makeup fibre input
+ Reduced fibre shedding and therefore wastage
+ Increase elasticity
+ Decrease in yarn breakage
+ Improved product quality through better yarn uniformity, reduced hairyness
+ Eliminates static electricity
+ Cool, clean, dust free environment improves staff comfort which in turn enhances productivity

Tea Humidification :

The essential criteria for making quality tea is to minimize the moisture loss from the tea leaves from the rupturing point in the Rotorvane /CTC m/cs or Rolling tables upto the Dryer feed end. For best quality and productivity it is imperative that this moisture loss is kept at the minimum possible level. The warmer and drier the ambient air of the production area, the faster the moisture loss from the tea. Maintaining correct humidity levels, uniformly in the production area like CTC room or Rolling room, will arrest the moisture loss from tea which will immensely improve quality.

Drastic moisture loss takes place in the CTC / Rolling Rooms because these rooms get extremely hot due to high installed electric load of the machines as well as the solar heat gains through roof and infiltration. Humidity being a function of temperature, ambient RH decreases drastically leading to rapid moisture loss from the tea under process in the CTC rooms within a very short time.

In a fermenting room where 90 - 95% RH is required to be maintained, the air is always very near saturation i.e. the dew point temperature. Precision engineered, fully automatic JetSpray humidification systems can only maintain the desired conditions without wetting / condensation as experienced with manually operated centrifugal spinning disk humidifiers or semicentral Air Handling Units, commonly used in the tea factories. AHUs which are used to supply humidified air to the fermenting machines or to fermenting rooms, can never give the desired 90-95% RH where it is required . The fully automatic, efficient JS HumEvap evaporative matrix module can be retrofitted to replace the conventional air washers currently used in the AHUs.

Cold Storage Humidification :

Crops or freshly slaughtered cattles are required to reach the customer fresh. In order to keep them fresh, these are cooled very rapidly to 2-4°C in the cold store by recirculating chilled air. From a 20°C+ temperature if these products are cooled very rapidly down to the storage temperature, the product looses moisture to the continiously recirculating air from the chiller plant and get damaged. To prevent this damage, moisture is added during this chill down process through humidification. However, it is not possible to humidify during the whole chilling process as the duty requirement will be so high that it will not be commercially viable. For this reason humidification is done intermittently , when the cooling is off. This enables the product to reabsorb the moisture from the air and also provides residual moisture to prevent moisture loss from the crop to the recirculating chilled air. If not humidified correctly, cold stores can suffer huge losses due product weight loss and degraded quality

Cold Storage humidifiers and humidification

Printing and Paper Storage Humidification :

Paper receives and loses moisture readily as the surrounding humidity changes . A moisture content of 5 to 7% provides suitable strength and workability. To achieve this moisture content, a RH of 50 – 55% must be maintained.

Benefits :

+ Eliminates static electricity and decreases or eliminates curl and warping.
+ Increases productivity with higher speeds and decreases rejects.
+ Improves sheet separation
+ Allows better ink transfer and enhances ink and glue chemistry balance.
+ Aids in dust suppression and produces evaporative cooling
+ Improves conditions of workplace and reduces heat load through evaporative cooling

Printing and paper humidifiers and humidification

Electronics Humidification :

Humidification protects against electrostatic discharge (ESD).

Electronic devices, circuit boards, components and data are highly sensitive to electrostatic discharge. Even a small discharge of 100 Volts can damage electronic components. The rapid miniaturization of electronic components demands highly effective ESD protection. Uncontrolled static electrical discharge can damage PCBs rendering them useless. This damage is only detected at the end of the production line and if left unchecked can significantly lower production yields.

The flow soldering machines used in the production of PCBs produce a lot of heat. As the air heats in the manufacturing area it becomes drier and is therefore more prone to static electrification.

By maintaining a humidity of around 55% relative humidity (%rH) ±3%rH, this electrical charge is dissipated eliminating the risk of accidental discharge on to the PCBs.

Electronic humidifiers and humidification

Tobacco Humidification :

Tobacco is a plant with a high moisture content , which releases moisture into the environment when the surrounding air is too dry. Dry air causes the leaves to shrink, leading to weight loss, increased fragility , cracks and tears. These adversely affect the production process, causing the tobacco to come out of the cigarettes , wrapping paper to get caught in the machinery and tobacco leaves used in cigar production breaks. Maintaining the right level of ambient relative humidity prevents all these problems by ensuring that tobacco, paper and leaves retain moisture at the correct levels, so maintaining their quality and ensuring that production can proceed at full efficiency. In order to maintain the tobacco at desired moisture content , different conditions of humidity and temperatures are required to be maintained in specific production stages or during storage.

Considering cigarettes, for example, the moisture content may vary by up to 12% in weight when the humidity of the surrounding air varies in the range from 40% to 70% r.H. (at 24 °C).

Wood Humidification :

During the humidification or dehumidification process, wood expands or contracts, causing cracks, breakages, shrinkages and deformations. If its environment is too wet the timber will swell. If it is too dry it will warp. When drying, wood absorbs the solvent of the finishes, taking on a granulose and matt appearance. Similarly, the glued joints are unstable, as the wood absorbs the solvent of the glue before the glue has the chance to polymerise. In this case too, the stabilisation of the environmental conditions allows the wood to maintain the same dimensions throughout the entire process, ensuring better results. The dimensional changes are not equal in all directions, however: the wood swells or shrinks tangentially more than radically.

If the air is too dry, the wood will discharge its own material humidity to the air: during the heating season, in particular, a reduction to levels below 40 % relative air humidity entails an acute risk of damage to the wood both in storage and in every phase of processing. The use of water-soluble paints and varnishes, too, demands constant room humidity in order to avoid adhesion problems.

A correctly designed fully automatic direct air humidification system can effectively prevent avoidable costs resulting from excessively dry heated air.

Other Applications

Other Application areas where JS Humidification System widely used are

+ Automotive ( Paint shops , Sanding decks, Engine testing)
+ Laboratories
+ Greenhouses
+ Food Industry

Wherever hygroscopic materials are processed or high temperatures, intense dust formation or electrostatic discharge affect business processes, air humidification systems can guarantee better quality and lower costs.