Drying & Curing Solutions
Babcock & Wilcox MEGTEC (B&W MEGTEC) is a global supplier of drying and curing systems. The company has 45+ years of experience with more than 100 patents and thousands of dryer installations worldwide.
In the industrial sector, drying and curing technologies from B&W MEGTEC have been deployed in roll-to-roll processing applications for advanced battery materials, coatings of various types, composites, solar films, membranes, flexible packaging, coil coating, converting, printing, electronics, nonwovens, and other industries. We cover a wide range of applications with a broad group of dryer styles:
Flotation
Roll Support
Festoon
Catenary
Belt/conveyor supported
Through-air
Inert
Clean room
Horizontal, vertical, and arched
Our dryers can be built in horizontal, vertical, or arched configurations depending on the specific product and space requirements. Each system incorporates energy-saving features, easy threading, and easy maintenance access. Separate web drying and air handling modules accommodate the most basic design to nearly an unlimited number of configurations.
Designs include different types of heat sources, zone lengths, web widths, and nozzle configurations, while providing superior drying, curing and web handling. High-efficiency heat sources and advanced air flow management conserve energy to minimize operating costs. Whether the application operates with gas, thermal oil, steam or electricity, B&W MEGTEC has a heating system designed to meet these requirements.
Our patented flotation air bar systems transport webs contact-free without shifting, which helps ensure product quality. Capable of handling webs at multiple speeds and widths, our flotation dryers float and dry webs of substrates ranging from the thinnest film, foil, paper, and other flexible and advanced materials, to heavy metal.
B&W MEGTEC is an industry leader in the web offset and digital printing markets, and is synonymous with providing patented drying solutions and the integration of dryers and oxidation systems. The result is optimum printing performance, minimized energy and waste costs, all while meeting the strictest environmental requirements.
B&W MEGTEC Development Center
To support the development of specialized and proprietary coating and drying applications, B&W MEGTEC has an in-house Development Center located at its headquarters facility in De Pere, Wisconsin, USA. The Center features world-class laboratory bench-top tools and a complete roll-to-roll pilot coating line that can be rented. The pilot line includes full coating and drying capabilities, which provides a controlled test environment for process development and trialing of short production runs.
Bench-Top Drying Lab
Our in-house Drying Lab is a bench-top system that captures complete drying characteristics of coatings and substrates from small-size samples. The system enables B&W MEGTEC process engineers to track rates of evaporation for water and organic solvents, along with determining the drying time required to reach target solvent or moisture residuals in the product.
In parallel with the development of new coatings, researchers often need to define a method/process for proper drying. But in the early development stages, advanced materials are often only available in limited quantities, which makes traditional pilot-scale coating and drying trials impractical. Our bench-top laboratory methods make it possible to leverage early returns on key data to help assess the commercial viability of web-based substrates.
Pilot Coating Facility
The B&W MEGTEC in-house pilot coating line enables customers to test, develop and improve web-based processes by evaluating system variables and components without having to invest in full-scale production. The goal is to optimize coating and substrate performance and web-based operation to shorten the time between trial and commercialization.
The pilot coating line is an important factor in establishing the viability of emerging and advanced materials applications. It can help confirm the potential for technology patents by providing a highly confidential environment needed for new-product development. It’s also the ideal environment to produce prototype materials for further research, marketing, and quality testing.
Related services and equipment capabilities of the pilot coating line facility include preparing slurry mixtures, access to multiple coating methods, a three-zone dryer that can be used with a wide range of substrates and tensions, plasma and corona treaters for foil substrates, and on-line coating thickness measurement and performance tracking.
Customers may apply their own proprietary expertise in a confidential setting. If required, our process engineers, R&D technicians, and analytic staff are available to leverage their collective process and materials expertise to solve drying and coating challenges for an ever-increasing array of substrates. Mixing, coating, and drying capabilities of the pilot coating line include:
- Manual unwind and rewind
- The ability to run multiple coating methods with precision coating modules for single- or dual-side slot-die coating
- A flexible machine layout that can accommodate custom changes to the line as needed
- Convection dryer with either impingement or flotation nozzles to dry the coated side of the web
- The ability to handle substrates up to 600 mm wide
- Line speeds up to 45 meters/minute
http://www.babcock.com/en/technology/drying-curing
http://www.babcock.com/en/products/drying-and-electrode-coating
http://www.babcock.com/en/technology/process-development-services