On-site nitrogen production plant

07.09.2022

Fans & Blowers in Highbridge, Somerset have recently added a new MSS Nitroskid high-pressure nitrogen generation system to their laser cutting operation. Having used bundled gas cylinders to supply their fibre laser for years, Fans and Blowers decided that they needed to improve the reliability of their high-pressure nitrogen supply.

Duncan Keates, Technical and Engineering Director, comments ‘after experiencing a prolonged series of production issues directly related to supply problems with our bundled gas supplier, we decided to explore alternatives. We called MSS as we were aware they had been specialising in high-pressure nitrogen for laser-cutting applications for a long time’. Duncan continues; ‘MSS provided us with a very detailed and comprehensive analysis of our existing nitrogen costs together with a very useful return on investment calculation that made it very simple for us to see how the costs of owning an on-site generation system would compare with our historical bundled gas supply.’

MSS Sales Director, Chris Smith commented ‘this was an interesting project as our standard Nitrocube system wouldn’t fit in the space onsite, so we came up with an alternative skid mounted system. Installation was also very challenging as an external wall had to be removed to allow access to the working area, this meant that the skid had to be of a modular design to allow easier handling of smaller sections. I’m very pleased that despite this, the installation work was still completed in a single day.

This special skid system still retains all the control, flow analysis and telemetry functions of our complete Nitrocube system.’ The bespoke Nitroskid 1 system supplied provides high pressure nitrogen at 13m 3 /hour flow and 99.9975% purity which is ideal for high quality laser cutting, especially for thicker stainless steel. The bespoke system was designed specifically to fit in the limited space available on site and features 288m3 of storage at 300 bar pressure. All the latest generation MSS Nitrogen systems uses the very best components available today which combine to make each system super-efficient. Typically using 25-40% less energy to generate higher purity nitrogen than many other systems available.

The new system also features MSS’ unique touch screen control panel that allows remote system performance and status monitoring. Duncan comments further ‘the MSS Nitroskid has now proven itself to be more economical than bundled gas cylinders and saves us a lot of valuable space on site. We now don’t have to worry about running out of gas due to missed deliveries or paying rental on empty bundles that haven’t been collected as we have our own dedicated supply which generates the right quality nitrogen only when we need it’. With over 600 systems installed in the UK and US, MSS are global leaders in high pressure generation systems for laser applications. 20 years of experience manufacturing in this market now result in MSS equipment being considered as the most efficient and advanced nitrogen generation systems available today.