The care for environment awareness in the Italian multinational Argo Tractors led in 2010 to the installation of the so-called Water Wall system, that provides the recovery and regeneration of cooling emulsion with a process patented by its supplier Technofluids. The special regeneration process dramatically cuts the amount of oil used, prevents the development of oil mists, keeping a healthy and safe workplace, and reduce the amount of exhausted cooling lubricants to de disposed.
The system is employed in the machining department of the Fabbrico plant of the company, with its 35 machining centres operating 24 hours per day. With no chemical additives required, the system recovers and regenerates the emulsion used when milling and drilling the various cast-iron and steel component parts for Landini, McCormick and Valpadana tractors. The emulsion is composed of water by 95%, while the rest is semi-synthetic oil, and thanks to the system is changed only twice a year.
Once employed on the machining centres, the cooling lubricant flows in a closed-loop piping system and is conveyed into settling tanks, where the metal filings from the machining processes are removed. Finally, the same system decontaminates the fluid removing any fungi or bacteria that may have grown in the different equipments. When the treatment is complete, the fluid is recirculated back into the piping system.
Argo Tractors recovers nearly 400 thousand liters of emulsion every year, also reducing at minimum the use of filter cartridges, achieving an overall minimal environmental impact. The process has attracted the interest of several other companies, even from outside of Italy, that have visited the Argo Tractors plant in Fabbrico to understand how the process works and how is possible to lessen the environmental impact of manufacturing processes.