Printing and dyeing equipment should be both green and intelligent

In recent years, the printing and dyeing industry has been put to the test, the domestic labor cost has risen, the international demand has weakened, and the printing and dyeing enterprises feel the "chill". At the same time, the requirements for ecological and environmental protection are increasing, and the requirements for waste gas and wastewater discharge in the printing and dyeing industry are more stringent, which also puts forward higher requirements for upstream printing and dyeing equipment manufacturers. Through technical improvement, printing and dyeing equipment manufacturers in China have made continuous breakthroughs in high-speed, efficient, intelligent, energy saving and environmental protection.
Although the printing and dyeing equipment manufacturers in Europe have always been the objects of imitation and pursuit by Chinese enterprises, according to the development status in recent years, the technology research and development of Chinese printing and dyeing equipment manufacturers is faster, showing a trend of vigorously catching up. Many domestic printing and dyeing equipment manufacturers believe that the manufacturing level of traditional printing and dyeing textile equipment in Europe is very high, but from the perspective of development speed, Chinese enterprises are unstoppable. Li Yi, vice president of China Textile Machinery Association, also said that the performance of domestic printing and dyeing equipment is gradually approaching the level of similar foreign products, with high cost performance, good process adaptability and timely after-sales service, which has formed a greater competitive advantage for foreign enterprises.
Green production is the development trend
Although the development speed is encouraging, compared with foreign products, domestic printing and dyeing equipment still lags behind in terms of technology research and development. European traditional printing and dyeing equipment manufacturers have higher requirements and more advanced production processes in terms of improving production efficiency and saving energy consumption.
The new open width dyeing process of dyed uniform knitted fabrics and the Koside dyeing uniform rolling car launched by Beninger Benninger, as well as the TRIKOFLEX drum washing machine, which is especially suitable for industrial textiles. The advantages of Koside dyeing uniform rolling car lie in its fast and navigational yarn moving configuration. The dyeing options of the machine can reduce the use of dye solution and reduce the cost of small batch dyeing. With the patented double drum technology, TRIKOFLEX drum washer can achieve the rear washing effect and ensure the washing efficiency with high mechanical strength. For sensitive fabrics, in addition to low pressure control, the equipment also has the advantage of wrinkle free conveying. In addition, the working width of the equipment is 5400mm, and the HYDRAVAC water removal system is used to improve the efficiency of resource utilization.
Bruckner Br ü ckner has always adhered to the concept of sustainable development. The ECOLINE stenter launched by the company combines the existing technology with a unique design, including the air flow section in the front half and a group of heat recovery devices, to achieve energy conservation and improve production efficiency. The dryer provided by the equipment can ensure the most efficient temperature distribution, and the existing thermal energy system is applicable to almost all woven and knitted fabrics. In order to further improve the production and energy efficiency of the stenter, Bruckner has also designed a new set of software. The attached database stores the parameters designed according to past experience, which is convenient for employees to operate.
ThiesiCone is the latest yarn dyeing machine of Thies, which is suitable for bleaching and dyeing different fibers. Its unique design can reduce pressure loss, so as to reduce energy consumption.
The new equipment EcoBoosterHRC of Monforts is specially designed to save energy cost in the drying and heating process of the tenter. EcoBoosterHRC can use a calculator to control the heat exchanger to adapt to the existing airflow, thereby improving energy efficiency and saving costs.
Intelligence is imperative
With the concept of German Industry 4.0 and American Industrial Internet put forward, as well as the promotion of China's "Made in China 2025" strategy, achieving efficient and intelligent production through the information network and the Internet of Things has become a new development direction of the textile industry. Especially in the printing and dyeing industry, the use of information networks and the Internet of Things can replace a large number of labor, simplify complex processes, and achieve automation, continuous production and sustainable production.
Oliver Schermuly, president of SetexSchermulyTextileComputer, who has been committed to developing automation solutions for the dyeing and finishing industry, said at a textile forum during ITMA 2015 that one of the many challenges faced by suppliers in the dyeing and printing industry is to improve productivity without increasing costs and focus on sustainability. The consumption of chemicals and water can actually be reduced by optimizing process control. For the production process of modern printing and dyeing plants, the tools provided by Setex can cover the laboratory process flow and pretreatment machines. Each batch of products will automatically receive their own sorting parameters, which will be determined, transmitted and controlled by the central control system one by one. Batch data records are stored for tracking, evaluating and optimizing production. In addition, the Setex solution helps balance energy consumption, thereby reducing total energy consumption.
As the largest textile machinery manufacturing enterprise in China, China Hengtian Group is also working hard to accelerate the intelligent production process of printing and dyeing. Hengtian Group's new generation THENAIRFLOWSYNERGY8 high temperature air flow dyeing machine further reduces machine energy consumption by using the latest development achievements. Now, each cylinder is equipped with a separate inverter controlled blower with small installed power, which shortens cycle time, greatly reduces water consumption, improves reproducibility, and the cloth guide mechanism operates stably.
The high-temperature single flow package dyeing machine launched by Lixin Fong's, a subsidiary of Hengtian, is applicable to all types of materials, such as package yarn, warp yarn and loose fiber. It only needs to keep enough water at the bottom of the dyeing cylinder to make the pump work stably, and it does not need to immerse all packages into the dye solution. In addition, its innovative wave dyeing technology is conducive to reducing the bath ratio, which is close to 1:3. In addition, the dyeing effect is greatly improved due to the new pump and efficient motor.
It is understood that one of the business priorities of China Hengtian Group is to build digital and unmanned textile factories to achieve intelligent production. Hengtian Group has developed an advanced digital control system that can be connected to smart phones, helping textile mills improve production efficiency and product quality. He said that the market potential for the integration of Internet platforms and traditional textile technologies is huge. The next goal of the Group is to realize intelligent manufacturing in other production processes, such as dyeing and finishing.
When talking about the current situation of intelligent development of domestic printing and dyeing equipment, Li Yi said that the investment in innovation and research and development of China's printing and dyeing machinery industry has always been low. Some low-end product manufacturing enterprises mainly focus on imitation, which has intensified the vicious competition in the market and caused a certain impact on high-end products. He pointed out that at present, domestic textile machinery enterprises have been relatively mature in the technology research and development of information networks, realizing the collection and processing of various information in the production process, but are still weak in the Internet of Things technology. The leap from the numerical control of a single equipment to the digitalization of the whole process and the automation of the system is truly intelligent, and it is also the direction of the development of intelligent equipment in the future.
Sustainable development needs overall planning
In addition, in the process of printing and dyeing production, the overall energy consumption and water consumption of domestic continuous printing and dyeing production process are relatively high due to the constraints of process flow and other factors. In contrast, European printing and dyeing equipment manufacturers have a stronger sense of sustainable development. In addition to incorporating the design concept of energy conservation, emission reduction and green production in the process of product research and development, foreign enterprises have a stronger awareness of advocating "sustainable development" of products in product publicity, promotion and display. For example, at ITMA 2015, exhibitors from several major European countries displayed their overall images with different sustainable development themes. Before the exhibition, the textile machinery associations of these countries also introduced their products to the global textile machinery industry with different themes of sustainable development. Among them, VDMA, the German Federation of Machinery and Equipment Manufacturers, which launched the BlueCompetence as early as 2011, said that "giving consideration to sustainable development and profit" was the focus of German exhibitors' exhibition, which combined sustainable development with the use cycle and total cost. Raffaella Carabelli, president of Italian Textile Machinery Manufacturers Association, said that sustainable development is the secret of the success of Italian technology. At the same time, during ITMA 2015, Italian exhibitors focused on technologies that help save energy and reduce environmental impact. The promotion activities of Swiss Textile Machinery Association with the concept of "factor+" highlight the added value provided by Swiss textile machinery manufacturers to customers. The promotion concepts include: "technology+sustainable advantages", "high-level products+reliable services", "innovation+environmental protection processes", etc.
The reason why printing and dyeing enterprises in European countries pay so much attention to the sustainable development of their products is that they are aware of the cost advantages they bring in the whole production process. At the same time, more and more foreign entrepreneurs find that, as the world's largest printing and dyeing market, Chinese printing and dyeing enterprises are increasingly demanding sustainable development solutions. They said that in the past, many Chinese customers thought it was the most important to invest less. But now, with the rising labor and energy costs in China, more and more Chinese enterprises began to add the factor of reducing the total production cost to the investment in new equipment, constantly looking for solutions with lower energy consumption and higher efficiency.