GMBOND: REVOLUTIONARY SAND BINDER

We have observed the foundry industry introduce many innovative products and processes throughout their many years of existence. While we have been able to overcome many shortcomings, there are still lots of problems which the technical people face with no long-term solutions forthcoming, primarily in the area of low emission sand binders.

General Motors Research and Development started working on an environmentally friendly sand binder during the early 1990’s. Their goal was to identify a binder that was strong, non-toxic and environmentally safe. Eventually they concentrated on a water soluble protein based binder and looked at Hormel Foods for their expertise in proteins . The partnership lead to the development of GMBOND Sand Binder. Hormel Foods hold the exclusive rights to market this product throughout the world, with patents in INDIA.

The various beneficial properties of this water soluble protein based sand binder are:

GMBOND ADVANTAGES

• Savings in shakeouts
• Low emissions
• Sand reclamation and disposal
• Reduced energy cost from not having to bake out cores.

• The basic ingredient of GMBOND sand binder is water-soluble protein.  Broken cores, core butts, scrap cores and strikeoff can be easily reground and used again and again to cast parts without minimal addition of fresh binder. Thus the waste in terms of core breakage, sand/binder, production loss, etc. is reduced when using the GMBOND Sand Binder.
  
  
• GMBOND helps in making intricate cores easily and effectively. Various intricate parts can be made using GMBOND based coated sand. This is because the sand is very easily removed from the core.
  
  
• The percentage of sand binder required is just 0.75% - 1.2%, typically 1%, depending on the sand weight to produce cores with adequate strength. Thus your operating margins increase using GMBOND.
  
  
• Electricity/energy consumption for core making is reduced using GMBOND Sand Binder.
  
  
• Decoring / Collapsibility: Huge amount of money is spent in decoring due to poor collapsibility of the core after casting. Apart from the money lost in energy there is loss in material and also in terms of time and production loss. As GMBOND is water soluble, the collapsibility is excellent. The used sand can be recovered and the used binder removed by just dissolving the binder in water.  So no need for hammering or other damaging or time consuming processes.
  
  
• Sand Recovery: At these times when the Government is becoming very strict about indiscriminate mining of sand which is effecting the environment drastically, the solution to this problem is GMBOND. The sand after use can be easily recovered by addition of water wherein the binder gets dissolved and the sand then may be dried for reuse. The sand can be again sent back for coating with GMBOND and cores formed. The huge savings in terms of purchase of new sand, recovery of the used sand after removing of the binder, disposal of the used sand are all solved by using GMBOND.
  
  
• Carbon Credit: The pollutions and the emissions are one of the major problems in the foundry industry. When used with aluminum, the GMBOND process reduced the pollutant emissions by up to 89 percent; with iron the results were more favourable, with reductions up to 99 percent. This could entitle the factory to earn carbon credit while not forgetting the positive effects to worker’s health condition and the environment combined.