What's In A Name!

When I first ‘dabbled’ in the fascinating world of acoustic cleaning technology I did so within my then existing company Sibus. It did not take me long to realise some lessons that I had to learn:

• I needed to recruit qualified acoustic engineers
• I needed to seek Government funding in order to develop my ideas
• I needed to learn as quickly and thoroughly about those industries which would benefit from such innovative technologies
• I needed to establish a dedicated company with a distinctive name

It has taken over ten years to achieve but we are now the world’s leading company specialising in audiosonic acoustic cleaners. It has been and continues to be a tremendous experience with sales in over 45 countries worldwide – and largely thanks to our unique name - PRIMASONICS®

On the face of it the name simply tells you about us – we are the best (PRIMA) and offer audiosonic cleaning solutions (SONICS).

It is quite a unique name which we have protected by Registered Trademark. The only other ‘competitor’ which comes close is a punk band of the same name which was the subject of one of my previous blogs!

Whilst deciding on a name, obviously I looked at other alternatives, one being Primasound, however I am very glad that I did not choose this name because if you search on Google today for primasound you will find a very mixed bag of results including a German online music shop Primasound and a website about Chakra music Primasounds.

PRIMASONICS® - a great name offering superb solutions in preventing particulate build up and maintaining material flow!

The Cock & Hens Vs The Red Dot

Football has always been in my blood and of course it started back in Northern Ireland when I started to go watch Glentoran, a soccer club based in the East End of Belfast. Their main (and richer) rivals were Linfield from South Belfast who were supported by both my dad and older brother.

As this soccer season draws to an end I am extremely proud and happy to announce that Glentoran pipped Linfield to this year’s Irish League title by a single point. Glentoran FC has had a wonderful history - none more than in the 1967-68 season when competing in the European League Winners Cup they played the mighty Benfica including the legendary Eusebio. I was at Glentoran’s ground, The Oval, for the first leg and witnessed a thrilling 1 – 1 draw. In the return leg the mighty Glens held Benfica to a 0 – 0 draw, Benfica going through on the away goal rule. I still have a copy of this old black & white team photograph (Photo A).

Although Glentoran’s European adventures began in 1914, I remember in my youth, that, because it was customary to exchange badges etc., with opposing teams in Europe, Glentoran found themselves somewhat embarrassed by not having any. The nickname for Glentoran is the ‘Cock & Hens’ and so the then Courage brewery, whose emblem was a cockerel, stepped in to donate some of their badges so that the Glens had something to present to their opponents. That emblem has stuck ever since and appears on the Glendora Club Badge (see photo left).

To me it highlights the importance of having an effective yet simple logo with which to associate your company. At Primasonics we have recently revised our logo to include a red dot:


This red dot will become a focal point in all our literature and advertising.

Indeed you will start to notice that even the lid of the Wave Generator attached to the Primasonics Acoustic Cleaners will also be red.

Simple & Successful!

Bend It - Like Beckham!

I love to visit Mallorca (Majorca to the unitiated) and try to learn about their proud culture and excellent cuisine. I was talking with a good friend of mine, Juan Mensol who runs a busy bar & restaurant in Pto Alcudia and he was telling me about the special Mallorcan bread knife called Oreinas. This knife has a specially curved blade which makes it ideal for cutting of slices from a bread roll. This specially designed knife originates from the town of Llucmajor which is situated about 15 km from Palma Airport. It has a delightful town square and its main industry was shoemaking. In addition it is also where the Oreinas knives are manufactured.

(Left: Photograph A)
It reminded me that several models of our Acoustic Cleaner range also are available in a specially designed curved version. Both the PAS-75 and PAS-60 models are available in both straight and curved options. Why the curved option? Well both the PAS-75 & PAS-60 are extremely powerful acoustic cleaners and their sonic material de-bonding effect covers a great area and at a 360 degree angle. Therefore, because they have these long wave frequencies the horns themselves have overall lengths of between 2.4m and 3.2m it is just not possible to mount these units where either space is not available or where they would restrict access.

(Right: Photograph B)

Two typical examples are:

Firstly, where they are installed on the side walls of say a large boiler economizer section which has a walkway along the side (see photograph A).

Or ...

Secondly, where they are installed on top of a spray dryer with restricted space between the top of the dryer and the building roof (see photograph B) – curvy ideas or what!

Indian Food, Friendship & Acoustic Cleaning Success

There's an old fashioned saying "Fortune favours the brave". Whilst it can relate to finding the courage to overcome difficult odds, it can sometimes apply to where you don't feel like doing something but then do it and enjoy really positive results.

This has happened to me and is where this blog post's title comes in:

Indian Food, Friendship & Acoustic Cleaning Success

Some time ago I was contacted by a potential customer for our acoustic cleaner business. They were based in India and asked me at very short notice if I could meet with them up in Edinburgh, Scotland where they happened to be on a visit. I had a busy schedule at the time and a trip up to Edinburgh was going to cause me problems so I was tempted to say that I could not make it. However, I relented on the idea and decided to be positive, making the trip after all.

I thought how nice it would be to take my contact to eat somewhere that would appeal to him so checked out the options in Edinburgh and opted for a super Indian restaurant where they served vegetarian food. The result was not an immediate business deal but something I value more - the building of a lasting friendship based on mutual interest and enthusiasm for the progressive development of the cement industry.

So where does the old adage I mentioned come in? Well, over time our friendship has born fruit from a business point of view. My Indian friend (at ACC India) has worked on large scale worldwide projects involving the cement industry and our acoustic cleaners have actually been installed on some of those projects to solve side wall material build up and blocking within large cement silos.

The Obajana Cement plant in Kogi state Nigeria is a good example - our silo cleaning equipment including the Prima Whip has been working there since 2007 on 4 of their cement storage silos, which were then each fitted with twin model PAS-60 Primasonics Acoustic Cleaners. The results have been so successful that the company have now ordered a further 8 PAS-60 acoustic cleaner units for the remaining 4 silos.

Read more about Primasonics Acoustic Cleaners in Nigeria in an article I recently posted at Bulk Online.

Primasonics will rock you!

I have just discovered that Primasonics International has now got some hot competition from guess who? – Primasonics.

Confused? Well let me explain. You may be aware that I prefer big band music, but our Director or Technology, Alex Bergus is into more extreme music and he discovered a punk band named PRIMASONICS. This is how their website describes them – ‘Five music vets getting back together in order to down a few brews, make some great noise…and change the world? Nah…that’s too big of a job. But someone has to show the new school what it’s all about. Pashion, not fashion, baby!’

On their website you can play a few of their ‘songs’, one of which is called – Not Another Protest Song’. Well it certainly has a powerful ‘frequency’ and ‘de-bonded’ me from my chair! So it just goes to prove that PRIMASONICS stands for POWER DE-BONDING. Our range of Primasonics Acoustic Cleaners has a ‘passion’ for de-bonding a wide range dry process materials and boiler plant ash in a very innovative and effective manner. If you are new to acoustic cleaning technology, take a look via the link.

By the way, if you are like me and prefer good swing music, here is a link just for you - read about Jan Eberle.

Look for the title ‘Just me, just you’, then sit back and enjoy!

Jan Eberle is some lady!

Music is the Food of Primasonics Development

At Primasonics we are totally committed to a continuing programme of R & D involving two UK leading acoustic universities. One of our ongoing projects is the design of an ultra powerful 30 Hz acoustic cleaner. We know from our extensive market research that there is a very good potential market for such a model and so to boost our innovative inspiration we turned to the world of music, or to be more correct, to study the design and performance of those musical instruments which were specifically designed to provide pure tones at lower frequencies and a very interesting and informative exercise it turned out to be.

Two musical instruments were of particular interest to me – the Sousaphone and the Wagner Tuba.

In basic terms the Sousaphone is a large brass wind instrument, similar in range to the tuba but having a more flared ‘bell’ and round shape making it suitable to be carried in marching bands. It gets its name from John Philip Sousa, who was in charge of the US Marine Band in the 1890s. He asked instrument makers J W Pepper to modify an existing instrument called the Helicon and henceforth this musical instrument was named in his honour.

This led me on to study the Wagner Tuba, which I believe was first produced in Germany by instrument maker Adolphe Sax who then demonstrated it to composer Richard Wagner in 1853. Wagner really liked the horn’s deep, rich sound and began to incorporate it into his orchestral compositions – hence it became known as the Wagner Tuba.

A good friend of mine who also happens to be an excellent composer and accomplished guitarist, Stephen Caudel composed 'The Edel Rhapsody’ for Solo Bb Tenor Wagner Tuba and Orchestra, first performed in 1993 in Carlisle Cathedral in the North of England.

Stephen’s undoubted musical talent and inspiration fired my own desire to provide all our Primasonics customers with the widest range, the finest quality and the best performing range of Acoustic Cleaners – worldwide!

Let Primasonics Take The Worry Out Of Carbon Black Build Up And Removal

With sales in over 45 countries worldwide, it is inevitable that as well as eliminating particulate build up problems and enhancing material flow in our key industries such as Cement, Power Generation, Petrochemicals & Food, that other dry processing and storage industries now seek our help. One such industry is Carbon Black.

There are two ways in which this very fine black ‘powder’ can be manufactured. The two manufacturing processes are Furnace Black and Thermal Black and they account for nearly all of the world's carbon blacks, with the Furnace Black process being the most common. The Furnace Black process uses heavy oils as their source of feedstock whilst the Production Furnace system uses a closed reactor to atomize the feedstock oil under very carefully controlled conditions, for example, primarily temperature and pressure.

Around 8 million tonnes are produced per annum and used within a wide range of industries such as pigment and automobile tyres. Carbon Black is a somewhat hazardous material and there have been a the subject of a large number of published papers on the affects of human ingestion of carbon black particles

Because the material is classed as a Group 2B Carcinogen (possibly carcinogenic to humans) these papers deal with such topics as respiratory effects, genotoxicity along with the study of several forms of cancer such as oesophageal cancer, lung cancer, bladder and stomach cancers.

The International Carbon Black Association has published a very useful user’s guide, available in PDF format which includes reference to any human entry into a confined space (such as silos, hoppers and baghouse filters). If such human entry cannot be avoided then they strongly recommend that pre-testing for oxygen and carbon monoxide levels as well as for other toxic gases is carried out. Primasonics International now has carbon black clients who have significantly reduced the need for manual entry into such plant areas as silos and filters by installing our range of Acoustic Cleaners. These use sound waves to prevent material build up and eliminate blockages.

Therefore within a silo a suitably sized acoustic cleaner will prevent any side wall build up and bridging, a typical silo top installation is seen in photograph 1 (left).

Likewise by installing an acoustic cleaner in a baghouse filter, material build up and hopper pluggage are eliminated and in addition, filter bag life is significantly extended. A typical filter installation is shown in photograph 2 (right).

The Primasonics range of Acoustic Cleaners certainly eliminate carbon black particulate build up within a number of key plant prcesses and storage areas, thus eliminating the need for manual entry to remove these blockages and clean the plant. To read more visit our carbon black plant cleaning page.