Surface Water Removal on Fresh-Cut Apple Lines

A fresh-cut apple line is a good place to see what an air knife is actually for. Apple wedges leave the wash carrying a thin film of water. Left on, it freezes them into clumps or makes the dryer work on water instead of fruit.

On this line, a GALEX X720 (7.5 kW) feeds a transverse air knife spanning the full belt width. The knife runs at 20 kPa and about 730 m³/h, releasing air at roughly 137 m/s along the belt—a continuous sheet that lifts the water film off the wedges in seconds.

The air is completely oil-free, and it leaves the blower at around 48 °C, far below drying temperature: no oil mist touches the fruit, and no heat alters its colour or texture. Absorbed power is about 6 kW of the 7.5 kW rating, loaded with margin to spare.

This duty repeats anywhere a washed product has to be dry before the next step. Belt width, slot gap, exit velocity and the number of stations determine the machine. Typical targets include cut fruit and vegetables, bottles and trays, fish and meat portions, electronics wet-process lines and washed industrial parts.

The easiest opportunities to recognise are rows of compressed-air nozzles or ageing side-channel blowers. Both perform the same task at a higher running cost. GALEX supplies the X7 range with matched air knives so the package is one specification rather than two.