Tunnel Washing Machine — A Powerful Tool for Centralized Washing and Energy Efficiency Enhancement
Release Time:
2011-08-19 09:53
Source:
China Laundry Information Center
Chief Engineer of Jiangsu Sea Lion Machinery Group, Shi Kaixuan
China is a vast country with a population of over a billion. With urbanization development and the improvement of people's living standards, the annual laundry volume is estimated to exceed 2 billion pieces. Although some hotels, railways, hospitals, etc., have their own laundry rooms, they still operate small-scale production in a single-machine, single-drum manual workshop style, which is small in scale, has high production costs, large energy consumption, and serious environmental pollution.
We keep saying every day: "Our country is a water-scarce nation with an energy crisis." We keep saying: Save some energy for future generations. Now, everyone is trying every possible way to find new energy sources. Why can't we be more creative in the way we do laundry and find solutions? Laundry is a major source of environmental pollution, consuming large amounts of water, electricity, and steam. Over a year, the volume is so large that several West Lakes could not contain it. Revolutionary changes are necessary.
I advocate establishing several large-scale laundry factories in the suburbs of major cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, and Chongqing. Medium and small cities can jointly build large laundry factories between cities (such as Suzhou, Wuxi, Changzhou, etc.). The military can establish laundry factories in relatively centralized and related units; the railway system can establish laundry factories at bureau or section levels. Hotels, hospitals, and schools should no longer build their own laundry rooms. With specialized large-scale laundry factories, a management model of decentralized collection and centralized washing can be fully realized. This will truly achieve centralized discharge and treatment, laying a solid foundation for building livable cities.
Centralized washing must rely on large-scale laundry factories or so-called laundry industrial parks, and achieving efficient washing in large-scale laundry factories or laundry industrial parks must be equipped with tunnel washers.
A tunnel washer is a highly automated washing equipment system. This equipment consists of seven major systems: weighing and feeding system, main drum washing system, squeezing and dehydration system, automatic shuttle transfer system, high-efficiency drying system, wastewater treatment and reuse system, and central control system.
In the main drum washing system, the entire process from dirty clothes entering the soaking chamber is controlled by a PLC module control system. Various sensors such as lasers detect the temperature, water level, pressure, vibration, detergent concentration, drum swing amplitude, rotation discharge, etc., during the washing process. The entire process from dirty clothes entering the drum for washing to clean clothes drying is fully controlled automatically by the PLC.
Compared with traditional single-machine single-drum washers, tunnel washers have the following characteristics:
1. Water-saving characteristics. According to relevant statistics, a single-drum washer uses 30 liters of water to wash one kilogram of laundry, while a tunnel washer only uses 6 kilograms of water per kilogram of laundry. Taking Beijing as an example, about 1,500 tons of various laundry are washed daily. Assuming 340 working days per year, water saved is: 24×1500×340×1000 = 1.224 million tons. Imagine how much grain production could increase if 1.224 million tons of water were used for irrigation? Although China is vast and rich in resources, it also has a large population with low per capita water availability. Developing and using tunnel washers will be a wise move to benefit the people and future generations.
2. Electricity and steam saving characteristics. The same data shows that for every kilogram of laundry washed, a tunnel washer can save 0.025 kWh of electricity and 0.7 kilograms of steam. In the above example, Beijing saves about 0.025×1500×340 = 12,750 kWh of electricity and 0.7×1500×340 = 357,000 tons of steam annually.
3. High production efficiency. Currently, the largest single-machine single-drum washers on the market are usually 100 kilograms (200 kilograms washers are rare), with a washing cycle of about 45 minutes to 1 hour. A tunnel washer washes 60 kilograms every 2-3 minutes, i.e., 20 kilograms per minute. Therefore, the efficiency of a tunnel washer is about 20 times that of a single-machine single-drum washer. If a 50-kilogram single-drum washer is used, the efficiency advantage of the tunnel washer is even greater.
4. Facilitates wastewater treatment. As mentioned above, if single-machine single-drum washers are used, Beijing would discharge 1.224 million tons of phosphorus-containing wastewater annually. This wastewater is dispersed in many places, making actual treatment very difficult.
5. High cleaning rate. Some say tunnel washers do not clean well, which is completely a misconception. In fact, tunnel washers clean better than single-machine single-drum washers. Why? This can be explained by the washing principle: stain removal depends on clothes falling and rubbing inside the washing drum, so the drum must have enough space. National and industry standards specify the volume coefficient of washing machines. The current standard volume coefficient for single-machine single-drum washers is greater than 10, while our trial tunnel washer has a volume coefficient above 40, providing enough falling space for clothes in the washing chamber. Clothes move from one chamber to the next via an Archimedes spiral, increasing rubbing between clothes and the spiral surface. The entire washing process in a tunnel washer is falling → rubbing → falling → rubbing, repeated continuously, which is naturally more thorough and cleaner than single-drum washers, with similar washing times. Some may ask: Didn't you say the tunnel washer's efficiency is about 20 times that of a single-drum washer? Yes, about 20 times, based on continuous washing advantage, discharging 60 kilograms every 2 minutes, resulting in high productivity.
6. Facilitates informatization management. This has been introduced above and will not be detailed here.
7. Greatly reduces management personnel and significantly lowers workers' labor intensity.
In summary, developing and applying tunnel washers is not only the direction of modernization in washing equipment development but also a necessity for urbanization development and the healthy and orderly development of the laundry market. It is an essential tool for laundry enterprises to achieve large-scale production and energy-saving efficiency improvement.
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