Metals Purification & Quality Controls for Honeywell

Honeywell Electronic Materials is a supplier to a worldwide electronics industry, providing critical materials that enhance the performance and productivity of your manufacturing processes. Honeywell invests in innovation with their centers for research and development located in Sunnyvale, California, Spokane, Washington and Shanghai that hold nearly 400 granted and pending patents.

Honeywell’s Spokane plant targets high-purity metals for electronics, aerospace and other industries. Their metallurgical technology delivers the higher device yields and lower particle performance for copper metals purification with a dedicated refiner for high-purity up to 6N. Every critical production step is completed in the Spokane facility.

ControlFreek Inc was contracted in late 2012 for a critical production step in metals purification to remove large particles that may enter the material. This production step involves a cooling system comprising a chiller for removing heat from the material. A circulating pump is also provided to move the material through the chiller loop of the cooling system. The chiller is controlled by a cooling loop controller that removes heat from the material such that the temperature of the coolant exiting from the chiller is maintained at a stable temperature.

The chiller panel utilizes Schneider Electric’s Zelio® Logic 2 programmable smart relay which CFI programmed to monitor tank temperatures and levels. Temperatures and levels are received from floats and solenoids from withing the chiller tank. If anything falls below or exceeds the programmed criteria, an alarm sounds and requires acknowledgement from a panel door push button. The alarm will remain silent for 15 minutes and sound again if the problem is not corrected.

When Honeywell added four material tanks in 2015, CFI was called upon again for their pump control panel. The pump control panel utilizes a Zelio® Logic 2 programmable smart relay again for its I/O needs, plus four Altivar™ 212 variable speed drives for the asynchronous motors used in the centrifugal pumps. CFI installed the panel on-site and did the start up.