L to R: Brodie Biersner (HA International), John Grahek, and Jeff Beuthien (Core Room Supervisor)

Clow Valve and HA International joined forces over the past year to conduct a case study to evaluate the changes/improvements, if any, that might occur if Clow ran CO2 cured cores. They recently had the opportunity to present their findings at the American Foundry Society’s Sand Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana.

The CO2 process of replacing amine gas to cure cold box cores is common in Europe, however it is new to the United States and Clow. In fact, Clow is one of a few foundries that is running it in high production.

Clow has been running and learning from this process for over a year on one core center and has now moved it to the other machines.

According to John Grahek, Assistant Metal Casting Facility Manager, “This has allowed us to eliminate the flammable MEF gas used to cure cores and utilize an environmentally friendly CO2 gas further reducing our plant hazards, HAPS, and VOC’s.”

Ironically John, Jeff, and Brodie are Foundry Education Foundation alumni from the University of Northern Iowa. It’s a small world!