Industrial Solutions Edwards

Leading innovations for over 100 years

For over 100 years we have been constantly innovating our vacuum pump technology and systems capability to help you to make your manufacturing cleaner, smarter, more economical and more environmentally friendly.

Edwards vacuum solutions for industrial application

Vacuum pumps are widely used in various industrial applications for creating a vacuum or low-pressure environment, being exposed to very different operating and process conditions.

Factors to consider when selecting a vacuum pump:

Physical volumes
Gas composition
Process parameters
Environmental conditions

These factors are essential to consider for proper pump selection and achieving optimum design and productivity. Edwards applications engineers are always ready to help you choose the right vacuum solution for your manufacturing needs, all thanks to our decades-long application expertise and advanced proprietary modelling software.

Process savings for your industrial application

Our products are designed to help you gain long-term process savings and develop sustainable businesses. The innovative technologies we have engineered have advanced the utilisation of vacuum for industrial applications, lowering costs of ownership, improving operating efficiency and reducing impact on the environment.

Our vacuum pumps equipped with Variable Speed Drives (VSD) are an example of our market-leading innovations. Engineered to operate on an as-needed basis, Edwards VSD pumps integrate energy and process efficiency into your manufacturing process. In turn this helps improve operating efficiency, reduce frequent maintenance, and leads to cost savings by extending the life of your capital investment.

Industrial applications we support

Industrial Gas Production

Vacuum pumps are used in industrial gas production for a variety of applications including gas tanks filling, vacuum pressure swing adsorption (VPSA) for the recovery of high purity hydrogen, methane, and carbon dioxide (carbon capture) as well as the generation of oxygen and nitrogen (air separation). Another area includes cryogenics applications for gas liquefaction and transfer where vacuum is used to reduce heat losses and boil-off.

Sterilisation

Vacuum technology plays an important role in several health care and life sciences applications. Sterilisation is a critical process needed for eliminating microorganisms that could contaminate pharmaceutical or other materials and thereby result in a health hazard.

Sterilisation processes include high temperature (steam) or low temperature processes for heat sensitive objects (ethylene oxide, hydrogen peroxide, plasma, electron beam). Vacuum technology enables most of these sterilisation processes.

Plasma Treatment

A plasma is in simple terms a partially ionized gas and is often called the fourth state of matter. Plasma technology is used in different ways like thin film coating; however, plasma treatment generally refers to utilisation of plasma for surface activation (modification of the surface energy) or surface cleaning (removal of organic contaminants).

Vacuum pressure enables physical conditions for plasma ignition and as such is present in most of these applications.

Industrial Drying

Vacuum drying is an essential process in modern industry. In particular, for the food and pharmaceutical industries, vacuum drying or freeze drying (lyophilisation) is more energy and time efficient, drastically reducing processing times. It is also safe for drying material where applying heat might degrade the product. For instance, you can use vacuum drying to safely evacuate moisture from salads without degrading their taste or health standards; similarly, this technology can be used to dry a heat-sensitive pharmaceutical drugs.

Crystal growing

Crystal growing is a process where layers of atoms are grown in highly ordered and structured arrangements to form high purity crystal. Various techniques are employed such as growing them from a seed crystal or epitaxial deposition. Materials used typically include silicon for semiconductor and solar panel markets, gallium for compound semiconductor wafers (III-V), silicon carbide for power devices.

Diamond is also to be mentioned as an emerging technology for semiconductor market, high frequency sensors, quantum computing and others.

Lamination

In the production process of solar panels, lamination is a critical step for encapsulating solar cells within protective layers to ensure durability and performance over the panel's lifespan.

The most common encapsulation is with cross-linkable ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA). With the help of a lamination machine, the cells are laminated between films of EVA under vacuum and heat conditions.