MANUFACTURING MEMO
PRESSURE NEEDS FOR
GROWING DEMAND
Growing product demand recently led premium Nelson-based alkaline water bottler E’stel Water
to require a tailored and state-of-the-art compressed air system to meet the high compressed air
pressure needs of its new PET blow moulding machine, so the company turned to Kaeser for help.
E’stel Water is a premium
alkaline water sourced and
bottled in Nelson from artesian
water located deep within the South
Island’s snow-capped mountains
and filtered through underground
mineral layers. Nearly 900m below
the surface of the Waimea Plains
in Nelson, E’stel extracts this high
alkaline water before transporting it to
a modern purpose-built plant, where
it is bottled, capped, labelled and
packed ready for global distribution.
The unique E’stel shaped plastic
bottles that this high alkaline water is
packaged in are manufactured on site
using a PET blow moulding machine
and, as demand for E’stel Water has
steadily grown since the company
was established three years ago, so
have the requirements of the bottling
plant, which has led to a recent
investment in a much larger capacity
blow moulding machine.
Responsible for manufacturing the
water bottles, the machine relies on
an efficient supply of compressed
air. At certain points within the
process, compressed air needs to
be pressurised up to 40-bar, which
inflates the soft PET (polyethylene
terephthalate) plastic into a mould
cavity which takes the desired shape
and size of the water bottles. With
a standard industrial compressor
reaching around a 10-bar pressure,
a booster compressor is additionally
required at those points in the
production process where this high
pressure compressed air is required
to literally boost - or increase - the air
pressure up to the desired level of, in
this case, 40-bar.
The new PET blow moulding machine
at E’stel is able to blow a staggering
11,000 bottles per hour, and as it
is a much larger system than what
the company had previously, a new
compressed air system was required
to meet this increased demand.
E’stel Water co-founder and director
Wayne Herring called upon the
existing and local compressed air
specialist (and authorised Kaeser
partner) PSL Total Air to present a
suitable solution. In order to meet
both the low and high pressure
compressed air demand of the new
machine, PSL recommended and
subsequently installed a complete
compressed air system that included
a CSD 105 rotary screw compressor
and a DN 22 series booster. Unlike
other boosters on the market, the
Kaeser DN 22 is a compact, plugand
play turnkey package, and the
uniquely integrated booster systems
are delivered and configured ‘ex
works’ to provide a system that is
ready for immediate use.
All DN series boosters are equipped
with a premium efficiency IE3 class
drive motors which exceed prevailing
Australian GEMS regulations for 3
phase electric motors. Along with
the generously dimensioned axial
fan, which also assures reliable
temperature control, this contributes
to the booster’s cost-effective energy
usage, Herring says. For all round
reliability, the DN series of boosters
also come with an integrated Sigma
Control 2 controller as standard,
which delivers efficient control
and monitoring of the compressor
operation. This greatly simplifies the
diagnostics process for precision
20 APRIL 2018