Jemtech's two-pronged coolant cost attack, supported by Waterhog, delivers one-year payback

By removing the excess water from waste cutting fluid, Waterhog will reduce recycling and waste management costs to such an extent that it will repay the initial investment in just over 12 months for a typical machine tool user, claims the company. As the cost of disposing of many 1000s of litres of cutting fluid continue to rise and the ethical concerns of doing so become greater, it provides an alternative that will reduce costs and concerns, "literally overnight". Manufacturing companies typically rely on third-parties to dispose of their waste, but this comes at a significant cost to the business. Typically, the price charged to remove a litre of cutting fluid is £0.20/litre. And when multiplied by an average usage of 40,000 litres per year, it becomes a significant amount taken from the bottom line. The answer is to reduce the amount of waste created and, or, sent for disposal, and it is here that the two-pronged attack on the problem by Jemtech (UK) pays dividends. "By encouraging businesses to take a serious look at why they are using more metalworking fluids than they need to, we are also helping them to identify other areas of their manufacturing process that need attention," explains Steve Coull, managing director, Jemtech (UK). "Businesses need to look at their cutting fluid management and by reviewing, in an orderly and professional manner, the reasons why cutting fluid use is higher than it should be and is being replaced on a frequent basis, then we can propose a remedy to the problem." If businesses adopt good fluid management procedures they will reduce consumption by as much as 20%. These immediate savings can then be enhanced by the implementation of Waterhog, which employs the 'boil-off' principal and sees metalworking fluid water content turned to steam, which is safely released to atmosphere. Jemtech recommends that Waterhog, which can hold up to 800 litres of fluid, is run overnight to take advantage of any lower rate power charges where available. The automation built into the system switches the unit off, once the water has evaporated, leaving behind approximately 50 litres of oil (or around 6% of the original volume) to be disposed of in the normal way. So, the original 40,000 litre annual usage of metalcutting fluid has been reduced to 32,000 litres through good fluid management, and by processing 32,000 litres using the Waterhog system, it is further reduced to 1,600 litres, which at £0.20/litre is just £320 versus the £8,000/year for the original 40,000 litres of mixed metalcutting fluid, delivers a payback of under one year.