How an ABOX Desiccant Dispenser Works: Protecting Your Products from Moisture

Moisture can be the enemy of many products, from pharmaceuticals and electronics to food and industrial goods. It can lead to spoilage, degradation, reduced shelf life, and even complete product failure. This is where desiccants come into play – materials that absorb and hold moisture. But how do these desiccants get efficiently and accurately into packaging? Enter the desiccant dispenser!

A desiccant dispenser is a specialized machine designed to insert desiccant packets, sachets, or canisters into various types of packaging during the manufacturing or packaging process. Let's break down how these clever devices work to keep your products dry and safe.

The Basics: What is a Desiccant?

Before we dive into the dispenser, it's important to understand what a desiccant is. Common desiccants include silica gel, molecular sieves, and clay. These materials have a high affinity for water molecules and work by adsorbing (sticking to the surface) or absorbing (taking in) moisture from the surrounding environment.

Here's an example of common desiccant packets you might encounter:

The Role of the Desiccant Dispenser

Imagine a high-speed production line where thousands of products are being packaged every hour. Manually inserting tiny desiccant packets would be slow, inefficient, and prone to error. This is where the desiccant dispenser becomes indispensable. Its primary goal is to automate the precise placement of desiccants.  By using a desiccant dispenser from ABOX Automation Corp, manufacturers have been able to fully automate the process at rates far greater than any manual operation could ever accomplish.  ABOX has developed proprietary software that helps ensure precise cutting of desiccant sachets from a bulk spool which results in possible insertion rates of 200 parts per minute or more.  In a bottling line, varying configurations including dual head designs can produce outputs of 300 or more bottles per minute.  

Here's a look at a typical desiccant dispenser integrated into a production line:

The Basics of the Desiccant Dispenser

The desiccant inserter above, simply rolls into any packaging line and utilizes photo electric sensors to determine when bottles are present.  As long as bottles are present, the machine will automatically index and fill the bottles as per the user requirements that are pre-programmed into the machine.  The processing of the bulk spool desiccants into individual pieces requires the material to be fed through the machine, registering the seal using photo-electric sensors, and finally cutting the product using hardened cutting blades.  A series of checks are done throughout the process to help ensure the product is cut properly, no jams are present, as well as if the machine has run out of product to process.  

Desiccant Dispenser Configurations

ABOX can design a system to fit in almost any application.  They can be installed on your typical conveyor bottling line, weigh scale applications, or a multitude of form fill and seal operations.  Our machines can process all brands of desiccants in spool or bandolier formats making for a completely universal machine option.  

Conclusion

Desiccant dispensers from ABOX have changed the way manufacturers have been operating, helping to produce more output while increasing accuracy at the same time.  

For more information on automating your packaging, contact ABOX Automation Corp.  Whether you need product sourcing, desiccant sizing, or full blown automation, we are ready to help!  www.ABOXAutomation.com