Degussa Food Ingredients

Degussa Food Ingredients is an international company providing the food, beverage and pharmaceutical industries with specialized ingredients and customized solutions for making and keeping food tasting great, fresh, healthy and safe.

The Challenge

As part of the Food Industry, Degussa must adhere to several regulations and standards including flooring requirements. Floors must be kept clean and sanitary. The floors at Degussa were ¼” floors and they were cracking and delaminating.

The plant floor holds several large ingredient tanks - some containing high acidic ingredients and solvents. The areas around and below these tanks were heavily stained and discolored with bleach due to the tank and floor cleaning process.

After the application of bleach, the floors were treated with 165 degree, high-pressure steamed water wash. Normal epoxy’s can only withstand about 130 degrees of constant temperature. Coatings had been painted too so the coatings were delaminating due to the regular thermal shock and stringent cleaning requirements.

The perimeter of the plant contained a small base-wall that was not well installed and not withstanding the tough conditions. Despite the rigorous cleaning regimen, the floors were slowly becoming a porous trap for mildew and bacteria. Something had to be done.

The Solution

CMS proposed a solution that included a seamless, 2-foot-high base wall, shot-blasting the floor to remove the damaged coating, patching and protecting the floor with a chemical-resistant, slip-resistant, low-maintenance, easy-to-clean flooring system. The floors were pitched to allow water and other liquids to flow toward drains in the floor. Due to the regular foot-traffic of higher level management, government officials and agencies, CMS recommended a level base-wall along the perimeter to make the room feel more aesthetically appealing.

The Process

Everything had to be done in phases in order to have the least amount of down-time and impact on the customer. Detailed flooring maps and schedules were created to coordinate with plant schedules. Drains in the floor were carefully covered and sealed during the process so that debris or dust would not go down them.

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	Step 1 - Install a termination strip two feet up the walls. The perimeter of the plant contained a small base-wall that was not well installed. Before anything could be done with the floor, all preparation for the walls had to be completed. The new base wall needed to extend up the wall and needed to be coved and seamless with the rest of the floor – no joints, cracks or seams. CMS installed a termination strip that measured two feet up the entire perimeter of the painted wall.
	Step 2 - Water blast the wall to remove paint and prepare for coating. The walls were painted and needed to be stripped of paint in order for the coating to adhere properly. A high-pressure spray was used to knock the paint off of the wall – this was made possibly due to the drains in the floor however CMS carefully screened all drains so that the paint chips would not go down them. Even the drains are regulated and processed in the Food Industry. Large fans brought in to dry it all out.
	Step 3 - Install decorative quartz epoxy cove base wall. Primer was applied up the wall to the termination strip followed by a carefully formulated slurry mixture. It takes a considerable amount of skill to get a cove base wall to hang without falling away or delamination. On a 2-foot high wall, the cove (rounded, seamless bottom border) must also be created manually. There is a fine line to get a coating to stay on a wall - too thick and it will fall down, too thin and it will run. The cove edge is tapered off at the bottom to butt up against the slurry on the floor.
	Step 4 - Install cant-cove at base of tank legs. The base of the tank legs were manually shot blasted and another cove was manually applied to the base to allow for a seamless flooring system.
	Step 5 - Diamond grind to remove delaminated epoxy top coats and prepare for coating. The floors at Degussa are exposed to regular thermal shock and stringent cleaning requirements. The base coat seemed okay and the adhering was still okay, but the top coats were all delaminating and needed to be removed. A diamond grinder was used on the main flooring areas while the hard-to-reach sections around the tanks were manually prepared using hand-grinders.
	Step 6 - Apply epoxy slurry mix and backroll. The cove edge from the walls tapered off onto the floor. The epoxy slurry mix overlapped back onto it to create a seamless system. The slurry mixture was then backrolled to push the slurry mixture into the small cracks and surface imperfections. This results in a filled, protected and more even surface.
	Step 7 - Seed blue, white and gray blended quartz in to web epoxy until rejection. Degussa chose a custom blend of quartz colors for their floor. The quartz blend was broadcast into the slurry mixture until rejection (meaning that no wet epoxy spots could be seen on the surface), swept off and then more epoxy was applied and broadcast again with the custom color blend of blue, white and gray.
	Step 8 - Sweep and vacuum to remove excess quartz after proper cure time. The slurry mixture was allowed to cure for 24 hours before CMS returned to sweep off the excess quartz granules.
	Step 9 - Application of a chemical resistant, clear epoxy topcoat. CMS recommended a “Novalac” acid resistant topcoat.  The coating was not water-clear like our normal topcoat and would have a slight amber hew which would darken the quartz floor a little, however, as we advised, this coating would greatly reduce any white streaking from the bleach. The top coat was applied by CMS and created a beautiful, seamless and textured floor finish.

In Summary

Degussa Food Ingredients was ecstatic about their new floors. The streaking effects due to the ammonia and bleach treatments were no longer be an issue. The newly coated floors look like new again and always receive high marks from the higher level management, government officials and agencies that regularly walk through the facility for inspections.