Sunday 22nd October 2023 CONTROL YOUR ENERGY USE WITH REGULAR OVEN LOGGING Reducing your carbon footprint and saving costs Threats to the global community from climate change have been rapidly increasing in recent years. At the same time, disruption to energy supply in many regions is causing dramatic price increases. Any steps we can take to control energy consumption across all industries is becoming an urgent necessity. OPTIMIZING OVENS FOR MAXIMUM EFFICIENCY Curing ovens and dryers are a major source of energy consumption in can making plants. Making sure that all your ovens are optimized to work as efficiently as possible is an obvious way to reduce the carbon footprint of metal packaging. It also has significant cost benefits. The ideal strategy is to run ovens as close as possible to coating suppliers' minimum spec. However, you can only do this safely if you are confident about the performance and consistency of your ovens. For this you need regular, detailed feedback about what is happening throughout the curing process. Using air thermometers inside an oven will produce a temperature profile, but no direct indication of temperatures achieved on the metal surfaces of the product. Another approach is to use spot temperature strips attached to the product. These simply record that a certain target temperature has been achieved at some point during the curing cycle. However, this still does not give a complete picture of how long the product has been heated by the correct amount (temperature over time), which is what really matters for a successful cure. THE RIGHT TOOL FOR THE JOB If you rely on these methods while trying to run your ovens close to the recommended limit, you risk under curing your coatings and wasting even more money. The only reliable method is to use a dedicated oven logger. This will give you a full temperature profile of the curing process in real production time. Sencon’s compact SL4000 logger has a range probe attachments that allow the same compact device to be put through any 2-piece or 3-piece can making oven. It can also be used to check temperatures inside the dryer after the washer. Regularly monitoring all your curing/drying cycles with Sencon’s SL4000 will keep your ovens optimised for energy efficiency without the risk of compromising product quality. As the climate crisis deepens and global energy prices continue to rise, this is a win-win for everyone. For more information on Sencon's Oven Logger contact your regional Sencon office or agent.