A rare earth processing company in Putian, Fujian, has long faced challenges such as high material loss and severe on-site dust pollution during powder transportation. The high-value rare earth powder produced by this company is prone to leakage during traditional transportation, causing raw material waste and substandard workshop environments, increasing the frequency of equipment cleaning and maintenance. To address this, Head Powder customized a leak-free rare earth powder delivery system for them, fundamentally solving the above problems.

Customer pain points

Rare earth powder features tiny particle size, is prone to dust generation, and has high value. Customers encounter the following challenges in actual production:

• Material leakage: Traditional mechanical or open pneumatic conveying methods lack sufficient sealing, causing powder to escape along joints and seals, resulting in a monthly material loss rate exceeding 5%.
• Environmental pollution: Dust spreading throughout the workshop not only threatens operator health but also causes dust accumulation on equipment surfaces, increasing downtime for cleaning and affecting production line efficiency.
• High maintenance costs: Leaked powder enters components such as bearings and motors, accelerating equipment wear, increasing maintenance and replacement frequency, and continuously rising spare parts costs.
• Low level of automation: The original system relies on manual inspection and manual adjustment, making real-time monitoring of conveying status impossible, resulting in delayed response when pipe blockages or leaks occur.

Solution

To address these pain points, Head Powder has designed a fully sealed, negative-pressure rare earth powder leak-free conveying system. The core of the solution includes:

• Uses highly sealed pipelines and dedicated rotary valves, combined with dual sealing rings and airtightness inspection interfaces, ensuring no external leakage throughout the entire transportation process.
• Equipped with an intelligent negative pressure adjustment device, it automatically optimizes conveying air velocity and pressure based on material characteristics, improving conveying efficiency while reducing powder damage and pipeline wear.
• Integrated online monitoring module provides real-time feedback on pipeline pressure, flow, and sealing status, providing immediate warnings and automatic adjustment of operating parameters in case of abnormalities.
• Selected wear-resistant, anti-static composite pipe materials reduce the static electricity risk caused by powder friction with the pipe wall, while also extending system service life.

After the system was put into operation, dust concentration at the customer's site dropped by more than 90%, material loss rate dropped below 0.3%, equipment maintenance intervals were extended to three times the original cycle, and the overall production line efficiency improved by about 25%.