To meet the worldwide growing demand for medium piping  systems for high-purity applications, Agru, one of the  world’ s leading suppliers for  piping systems,  has invested 15 million euros ($16.8 million) in a state-of-the-art facility for  manufacturing Purad, the piping system for ultra-pure media.

The facility, located at its headquarters in Bad Hall, Austria, has been designed by the architect team ‘x architekten’ from Linz, Austria, and resembles a vastly oversized pipe. The bronze-anodised trapezoidal sheet-metal facade stretches across the entire complex. The interior has a modern, functional and clear architectural style reflecting the cleanness and surface quality of the Purad products manufactured there. 

The plant has a usable surface area of 7,739 sq m, of which about 60 per cent is for materials storage and infrastructure.

The new facility underscores the high customer orientation of Agru plastics experts: “Quality and cost leadership are two of our maxims,” asserts Alois Gruber, company owner and CEO. “So our customers profit from state-of-the-art technologies at an unparalleled price-performance ratio. One major plus is our technological diversity: injection moulding is one of our core competences and another is the extrusion of thermoplastics. And working with fluoroplastics is an established tradition at Agru.”

Purad piping systems for ultra-pure media are used for high-tech applications in the semiconductor, life sciences, foodstuffs, petrochemical and photovoltaic industries. “Uncompromising quality, outstanding customer benefit and high operational dependability are the characteristics of Purad. Whenever excellent anti-leaching properties and high chemicals resistance are essential, Purad is the first choice,” Gruber said. 
 

The exterior of the plant in Bad Hall, Austria

As requirements differ from application to application, Purad products are manufactured from different thermoplastic polymers selected for their specific advantages. PVDF UHP is ideal for the ‘transport of ultra-pure-refined media’ high-end application. Purad pipes in PP-Pure and Polypure are the best alternative for the transport of all other highly purified media.

The new facility, called Plant 5, is used exclusively for the manufacture of Purad PVDF UHP piping components for high-purity applications. Unlike many other plastics, this extremely pure polymer contains no stabilisers, plasticisers, friction-reducing or flame-retarding additives. The most common application is transporting ultra-pure water in the semiconductor industry, the sector that manufactures computer chips for PCs and tablets, smartphones, TVs and sat nav devices. In chip production, a particle only a fraction of a micrometer in size can disrupt the structuring of the ICs (integrated circuits). 

KEEPING IT CLEAN 

“A sophisticated  cleanness concept in Plant 5 ensures that all pipes, fittings, valves, seals and  flanges  are  produced to an  ultra-high standard  of  cleanliness and  are  hermetically packaged and double-sealed ready for dispatch from the facility,” said Gruber.

The facility is ISO Class 5-compliant from start to finish and meets hygiene requirements higher than those for hospital ORs. The design of the cleanrooms reduces concentrations of airborne particles. Suspended-particle filters, protective clothing and a constant excess interior pressure prevent particles from making their way into or occurring inside the cleanroom.

Access to the cleanroom is through a succession of hierarchical zones in which cleanroom classification rises from zone to zone. Access to the cleanroom itself is possibly only through personnel and materials airlocks, and protective clothing must be worn. Powerful airflows inside the airlocks cause entrapped particles to swirl free, so that they can be extracted into a filter to prevent the ingress of foreign matter from outside. 

A laminar air flow is maintained inside at all times to ensure maximum freedom from dust. “Productivity means taking know-how, automation technology, meticulous craftsmanship, process reliability, lean production and energy efficiency and combining them to optimum effect,” sums up engineer Johannes Haager, Agru’s COO. Plant 5 is brimful of productivity. The ‘everything under one roof’ philosophy and ISO class 5-compliance from acceptance of granulates through production and final cleaning to packaging, ensures even higher quality, cleanness and customer satisfaction.

Purad pipes, with diameters between 16 and 315 mm, are produced on multiple extrusion lines. Surface roughness, diameter, section thickness, length and cleanliness are monitored continuously. Additionally, the process data of each system part manufactured are logged by means of the batch number ensuring 100 per cent traceability over many years.

Purad fittings, valves and flanges are manufactured on specially designed injection-molding machines in highly sophisticated processes using state-of-the-art techniques. The   installed capacity in extrusion and injection moulding corresponds to an increase of about 30 per cent over the company›s former cleanroom production capability. The raw material,   PVDF UHP granulate, is stored in a dedicated storage facility.  As in finished-goods storage, here too the incoming inspections are stringent and removal from stock is strictly in accordance with the first-in first-out (FIFO) principle.

QUALITY CHECKS

Final cleaning and packing takes place in the same building. All system components undergo more quality checks, including dimensional checks and internal-pressure creep-rupture tests with hot water at 95 degrees C and leak tests of the double hermetically sealed packaging.  

“Products are tested under conditions vastly harsher than those encountered in real-world operation.

These huge safety margins allow Agru users to rely 100 per cent on the quality, operational dependability, reliability and durability of our products. Naturally, in the course of continuous cleanliness validation surface quality and cleanness of all Purad products are checked visually and assessed by arrays of sensors,” says Thomas Narbeshuber, head of quality management, at Agru.

For a standard of cleanliness unparalleled elsewhere in the industry, Agru has invested in a new ultrasonic washing facility. Before being packaged, the products are washed with ultra-pure water and special tensides at 70 degrees C. Additionally a system of hermetic double packaging, preserves this standard of cleanliness. The products are stored in fully automated high-stacking stores and, along with a high-efficiency global logistics network, the company ensures outstanding delivery capability. The products are backed up with a full range of engineering support services. 

Agru is represented in the region by its UAE-based distributor BMC Gulf, which serves regional markets with specialised engineering services and turnkey solutions for industrial and private projects.