ARBURG trainees win VDMA award

In rotary and cubic ARBURG production, oil is used as a coolant, and this accumulates with the swarf in the form of "grinding sludge" after metal machining. Together with their instructor, the trainees considered how the oil could be economically extracted and reused as a valuable resource. Initial tests were carried out at the ARBURG Vocational Training Center using a small press developed and built in-house for separating the oil from the swarf. The trainees discovered that up to 60 per cent of the total weight of the saturated swarf was oil that could be recovered.

Based on the findings from the concept, ARBURG has purchased and already commissioned a large press to recover the oil industrially – by pressing the sludge and turning it into briquettes. By separating the oil and swarf, up to 9,126 litres can be recovered and reused each year in rotary production. If a 15 per cent oil loss is factored into the recovery, almost 22,000 euros could have been saved in pure purchasing costs in 2023 alone. But that's not all: this measure also reduces transport and disposal journeys and hence CO₂ emissions by 4,336 kilograms in this calculation. The trainees skilfully summarised all of these findings in a ten-page concept paper and submitted it to the Carbon Busters 2024 competition – with success, as their top ranking once again proves.