Hot Tank Case Study:
75% Less Wash Time, 83% Less Water, Three Times the Output
In industrial filter cleaning, the hot tank can determine how much work gets done in a day.
The obvious way to improve output is to shorten the wash cycle or increase the number of filters cleaned at once. But in this workshop, there was another problem costing just as much time and far more water and chemical: the tank had to be emptied and restarted too often.
Apollo trialled a different approach using an AT800 hot tank, centrifugal filtration and EziWash cleaning chemical. The aim was to keep the wash solution working for longer, reduce the number of tank restarts and see what effect that would have on cleaning time, water use and overall production.
The results were substantial:
- Wash time reduced by 75%
- Water use reduced by 83%
- Output increased by 200%
Wash Cycle
Water Consumption
Productivity
The reason those numbers matter becomes clearer when you look at what happens every time a hot tank has to be restarted.
As filters are cleaned, oil, carbon and other contamination builds up in the wash solution. Eventually the solution becomes too contaminated to keep cleaning effectively.
Every restart consumes water and chemical and takes the hot tank out of service.
The machine and the chemical are one decision
A hot tank that suits the parts will still be dumped constantly if the chemistry and the filtration cannot keep the solution working. That was the position here: high water use, high chemical use, and production stopping every time the tank had to come out of service. So the question Apollo set out to answer was not how fast the tank could clean. It was how long the solution could be kept working.
What a restart actually costs
Industrial filters in the Apollo hot tank, before the cleaning cycle
Every restart costs three times over:
- The water and the chemical, both thrown away together
- The hours the machine spends being pumped out, cleaned and refilled
- The energy to bring a full tank back up to temperature from cold
Do it often enough and the restart cycle, not the wash cycle, is what sets the ceiling on how much work gets out the door.
What the trial set out to prove
Four things to prove, all of them measurable:
- Fewer tank restarts
- Less chemical
- Less water
- A shorter cycle
The tank ran more than three weeks without a restart
Every extra day between restarts is water and chemical not thrown away, hours not spent pumping out and scrubbing, and a tank that stays at temperature and available. Cleaning performance improved across those three weeks rather than tailing off, and the filtration is why. A centrifugal system takes contamination out of the solution continuously instead of letting it build up until disposal is the only option left.
What the trial showed:
- More than three weeks without a restart, and the disposal cost that goes with it
- Cleaning performance improved rather than tailing off
- Water and chemical use both down
BEFORE CLEANING
AFTER CLEANING
Then the platform got bigger
With the principle proven on the small tank, a larger platform tripled the number of filters going through per batch, and cleaning performance per hour rose threefold with it.
Tripling the batch also triples the contamination arriving at once, so the filtration and the chemistry had to carry the extra load.
A larger platform on its own would not have done it. It would have reached the same wall three times faster.
What it saved
Wash time down 75%, so the same filters come out clean in a quarter of the time.
Monthly water use down 83%, almost all of it from no longer dumping the tank.
Output up 200%, which is three times as many filters through the same workshop.
Wash Cycle
Water Consumption
Productivity
What else improved
No More Sodium Hydroxide
The process cleaned well enough that sodium hydroxide was no longer needed on site. EziWash contains no sodium hydroxide and no free caustic, so the cleaning power stayed and a hazardous chemical left the building.
A Cleaner Running Facility
Better Spray Washer Performance
Less Waste To Dispose Of
Lower Energy Use
What it adds up to
One tank, the right chemical and continuous filtration took three quarters off the wash time, four fifths off the water, and the caustic off the site.
The machine was only ever part of it. Keeping the solution working is what changed the numbers.
BEFORE CLEANING
AFTER CLEANING
Would this work in your workshop?
Tell us what you are cleaning, how long your cycle takes, and how often the tank has to come out of service. We will tell you honestly where the gains are likely to be, and we will test your parts before anyone commits to anything.