PPG Industries is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of coatings, paints, and specialty materials. Its products are widely used in automotive, industrial, protective, architectural, aerospace, and other industries. In industrial coating production, multiple colors and formulations are manufactured, creating higher requirements for pipeline cleanliness, material recovery, product consistency, and automated production efficiency.
During traditional coating production processes, frequent switching between different colors and formulations can cause material residue inside pipelines, cross-contamination, raw material waste, and high solvent consumption for cleaning. These challenges directly affect production efficiency and product quality.
Challenges in Coating Production
During coating transportation, PPG faced several production challenges:
- Difficult removal of residual coating materials inside pipelines, resulting in product waste;
- Long color-change time between different coating products, reducing production efficiency;
- Pipeline residue causing cross-contamination and affecting product quality;
- High solvent consumption for cleaning, increasing VOC emissions and environmental pressure;
- Long cleaning cycles and low equipment utilization;
- High labor intensity and maintenance costs caused by manual cleaning.
BJVP Pigging System Solution
To meet the requirements of PPG industrial coating production, BJVP designed an automated Pigging System solution. The system uses elastic pigs driven by compressed air or nitrogen to recover residual coating materials inside pipelines, enabling fast color change, automatic pipeline cleaning, and efficient product switching.
Advantages of BJVP Pigging System for Coating Applications:
1. High-Efficiency Recovery of High-Value Coatings
BJVP pigs feature a multi-lip elastic sealing structure that closely contacts the internally polished pipeline surface. A single pigging operation can recover most residual coating materials, reducing pipeline residue to approximately 1 g/m. This significantly improves the recovery rate of high-value coatings, resins, and varnishes while minimizing material waste.
2. Effective Reduction of Cross-Contamination
The Pigging System efficiently removes residual coating materials from pipelines, reducing mixing between different colors and formulations. This helps improve product consistency, minimize contamination risks, and reduce defective products caused by material mixing.
3. Fast Product Changeover and Higher Production Efficiency
The system supports rapid switching between different coating products, including different colors, primers, topcoats, clear coatings, and other formulations. By shortening color-change and product-change time, the Pigging System reduces downtime and increases production line utilization.
4. Lower Cleaning Agent Consumption and Waste Treatment Costs
Because the Pigging System removes most residual coating materials before cleaning, it greatly reduces solvent consumption. This helps lower VOC emissions, decrease waste liquid treatment costs, and support more sustainable production.
5. Automatic Material Recovery and Improved Automation
Recovered coating materials are automatically returned to recovery tanks for reuse or centralized processing. The automated recovery process reduces manual intervention, improves production automation, and lowers operating costs.
Project Results
After implementing the BJVP Pigging System, PPG achieved significant improvements in production efficiency, product consistency, equipment utilization, material recovery, and environmental performance.
| Item | Improvement Results |
|---|---|
| Product Changeover Time | Reduced from 4 hours to 3–10 minutes |
| Pipeline Material Recovery Rate | Up to 99% |
| Pipeline Residual Material | Reduced to as low as 1 g/m |
| Cross-Contamination Rate | Reduced to 0.05% |
| Cleaning Container Usage | Reduced by 95% |
| Solvent Consumption and VOC Emissions | Significantly Reduced |
BJVP Pigging Systems are now widely applied in industrial coatings, fine chemicals, advanced materials, adhesives, resins, inks, and other industries. The systems meet various requirements for fluid recovery, product changeover, and automated material transportation, helping companies improve production efficiency and reduce operating costs.
Beijing VP Technology Co., Ltd.
BJVP was established in 1996 and specializes in the research, manufacturing, and system integration of fluid transportation, process control, and automated blending technologies. With proprietary technologies, multiple patents, and extensive engineering experience, BJVP provides intelligent fluid handling and complete automation solutions for green coatings, fine chemicals, advanced materials, and related industries. BJVP’s core products include: Pipeline Pigging System; Manifold System; Additive Decanting System; Automated blending system.
BJVP’s manufacturing facility is located in Wen’an Economic Development Zone near Xiong’an New Area, covering approximately 27,000㎡ of construction area. The factory is equipped with advanced manufacturing facilities and performance testing systems. All equipment undergoes strict quality inspection before delivery.
BJVP products are certified with ISO9001, ISO14001, ISO45001, and European CE certification, and the company owns dozens of national patents.
To date, BJVP has provided integrated fluid handling and automation engineering solutions for leading companies including PPG, Wanhua Chemical, BASF, Evonik, Arkema, INEOS, DSM, and Tesa. The solutions cover process design, equipment manufacturing, system integration, installation, commissioning, and turnkey engineering services.