Heraeus Noblelight has invested in a gas catalytic infra-red oven at its Neston Applications Centre on the Wirral.

This is suitable for powder coating, thermo forming, textile drying and curing coatings on heat-sensitive substrates, such as MDF.

Ian Bartley, Heraeus business manager at Neston, said: “We can now offer a comprehensive service to our customers and potential customers.

“We can carry out in-house trials on their products and components, using electric infra-red and gas catalytic infra-red to determine which technology — and which waveband of infra-red — best suits their requirements.

“We can also demonstrate the advantages of these technologies in conditions as close as possible to those met on the production floor.”

The gelling of powder coatings has traditionally been carried out by convection ovens, which are energy-inefficient and require a large amount of floor space.

They can also be costly to run and cannot be quickly shut down when there are breaks in production.

Gas catalytic ovens suffer from none of these drawbacks; they are highly controllable and can be used for smaller batch sizes.

The new gas catalytic oven at Heraeus’s Applications Centre is 6.3 x 2 x 2.3m, and the associated parts conveyor has a line speed of 3.6m/min, but ovens can be built to suit customer requirements.

Heraeus Noblelight specialises in the production and application of high-quality energy sources, covering the electro-magnetic spectrum from ultra-violet to infra-red.

It has the expertise and systems to provide efficient and effective solutions to drying, heating and curing problems throughout industry.

Gas catalytic infra-red ovens entered its portfolio when Vulcan Catalytic Systems Ltd was acquired last year.