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Plastic conveyor belts from DuPont The food industry secret: Delrin®

Delrin® is a tough, lightweight, durable, wear-resistant, low friction, low noise and high performance acetal resin solution for modern conveyor systems. It offers enhan-ced quality and performance, uncompromising reliability and greater design freedom than metal or other plastic solutions. Bottling conveyor chains and belts of Delrin® need less maintenance than chains and belts of other materials.

With a lower overall system cost, less energy consumption and longer service life, conveyor chains using Delrin® components remain clean, safe and more hygienic versus metal alternatives. Contact us to learn how Delrin® can streamline your operation and save you money.

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The problem with metal

Traditionally, metal has been used for conveyor belts because of its strength. However, metal is not without its problems. Working environments are noisy. Metal must be lubricated often, and even despite this, parts wear down due to frequent friction. Metal must also cleaned with a special soap and a lot of water, which is not very environmentally friendly and slows production.

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The Solution

Delrin®: The plastic alternative to metal

DuPont not only provides different grades of Delrin® with internal and external lubrication to manufacturers of conveyor belts, but collaborates in R&D to achieve specific properties. In some cases, the resin is reinforced with Kevlar or supplemented with other substrates to make it x-ray detectable.

Delrin® compounded with a silicone oil concentrate from DuPont, meets requirements for low friction, wear resistance, high strength, fatigue endurance, dimensional stability and consistent molding productivity and is ideal for molding flat-top conveyor chains and plastic conveyor belts. Three grades of conveyor flights with coefficients of friction ranging from 0.18 to 0.12 are available.

Advantages include:

- Production flexibility: The injection molding process used for components of Delrin® is much simpler and more cost effective than the manufacture of steel chains.

- Low friction: in most applications, conveyors can run smoothly with reduced soap and water lubrication or even without lubrication at all.

- Improved productivity due to lower maintenance: Delrin® conveyor systems need less maintenance and are subjected to fewer downtimes.

- Less tipping, wear, noise: Low friction reduces the risk of product tipping, cuts conveyor component wear and holds down noise.

- Permanent lubricity: The lubricant is added with Delrin® during the compounding process.

- Durability: With the superior fatigue strength of Delrin®, the chains withstand repeated „jerk loads“ produced when conveyors start with product already on the line. - Resists harsh chemicals: Delrin® is resistant to typical cleaning solutions and other

agents used to wash down conveyor lines.- Modular design makes optimized plant layouts possible; conveyor sizes can be

designed to match precise line capacity specifications.- Environmentally friendly with low or no water usage and elimination of soap typically

used with metal.

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Plastic conveyor belts case studies

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Delrin® the backbone of success

The use of DuPont acetal resin helped Flexlink to develop a generic conveyor chain design that is both cost-effective and that can be easily adapted to global production volume. The conveyor chain systems made with Delrin® provide a great layout freedom and can be quickly and easily assembled using ordinary hand tools. The conveyor systems are also lighter and therefore cheaper to transport and mount than metal chains.

Delrin® was chosen for its excellent tensile strength that can withstand a maximum of 6,000 Newtons and has a permissible working tension of 1,250 Newtons. It is also a lubricated grade, designed for low-friction and high-wear resistance. It also demonstrates a significant reduction of noise.

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Why DuPont?

Contact us

DuPont is a science company. Founded in 1802, DuPont puts science to work by solving problems and creating solutions that make people’s lives better, safer and easier. Operating in more than 70 countries, the company offers a wide range of products and services to markets including agriculture, nutrition, electronics, communications, safety and protection, home and construction, transportation and apparel.

If you have any questions or you want to learn more about DuPont plastic conveyor belt solutions, please contact us:

Call our Food Industry Experts on 0800 – 367 668 38

Send us your question on http://www2.dupont.com/Food__Innovations/en_GB/contact/index.html?src=fdemea_uk_doc_saf

or read more on http://www2.dupont.com/Food__Innovations/en_GB/equipment/plastic-conveyor-belt.html?src=fdemea_uk_doc_saf

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