ZEN Launches Eco-Friendly, Food-Grade, Anti-Rust Coated Bearings for Food & Beverage Industry

 

ZEN continues to bolster its strong international reputation with the announcement of its echo-friendly, food-grade, anti-rust coated bearings. Currently applied within the food and beverage industry, the new FDA certified, corrosion resistant bearings, vastly outperform stainless steel bearings and improve cost efficiency. Downloadable testing results are available.

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Headquartered in Dusseldorf, Germany, The ZEN Group, led by Yago Zens, is the largest manufacturer of stainless-steel bearings in the world. The group maintains global recognition for quality standards, earning them the ISO 9001 certification; the highest standard achievable for quality management in their industry. Today, ZEN continues their dedication to quality achievements, unveiling a safe and effective coating for stainless steel bearings.

ZEN’s corrosion resistant coated bearing design for food-grade safety standards, is non-toxic and environmentally friendly, making it multi-dimensional in its usage. Importantly, salt spray testing performed to DIN standards, indicate that the advanced RoHS compliant bearings last twice as long as standard stainless-steel bearings, improving cost efficiency by reducing the expense of bearing replacement and downtime.

While the application is currently being used to improve stainless steel insert, and pop bearings within the food and beverage industry, all industry applications that require enhanced corrosion resistance can benefit from ZEN’s advanced products. Simultaneously, the launch coincides with a global incentive to implement echo-friendly solutions aimed at protecting the environment.

The ZEN group is currently shipping direct from their manufacturing facilities in China to customers throughout the world. Outside of the EU, product is being shipped nonstop from China to; the U.S., Canada, India, Australia, Mexico, Brazil, and Korea. The strategy has created vast price advantages for global customers, while simultaneously shortening lead times. With 48 official sell points, ZEN has developed the capability to ship to any location on Earth and plans to expand its resources further.

ZEN food and beverage Safe

Comparing Stainless Bearings to Stainless Bearings with the new AC+ surface treatment

In environments like the food and beverage industry where bearings have to withstand constant washing with high-pressure water or chemicals, avoiding corrosion is decisive. This condition is one of the most common causes of bearing failure and in severe cases, can cause early fatigue failures.

Thinking carefully about the requirements of our intended application and making the correct decision when choosing lubrication, sealing and bearing materials, will help us to prevent corrosion and therefore, to increase productivity, to prevent unplanned downtime and lower the total costs of operations.

As regards the choice of bearing materials, although stainless steel is really effective in preventing corrosion, for high demand industries like food and beverage is, going one step further to prevent corrosion is necessary. With this in mind, the ZEN Group has launched a new range of FDA and RoHS compliant corrosion-resistant coated bearing within its beverage and food safe bearing product line.

According to Yago Zens, who has been the CEO of ZEN Bearings for over 20 years, the salt spray test is one of the most recognized and efficient methods for the evaluation of the corrosion resistance of bearings materials, this being the one, they perform at the ZEN Quality Control Centre in order to give the best advice to its customers.

To test and show us the corrosion resistance of these bearings, Mr Yago Zens exposed three samples of different types of stainless steel bearings to a 120 hours salt spray test including the new AISI 420 AC+.

The three samples tested were as follows:

A = AISI 420 stainless steel.
B = AISI 420 stainless steel AC+
C = AISI 440 stainless steel.

The Salt Spray Test is an accelerated corrosion test that produces a corrosive attack on the tested samples to predict their corrosion resistance.

The appearance of corrosion products (oxides) is evaluated after a period of time. Test duration depends on the corrosion resistance of the material the more corrosion resistant the material is, the longer the period in testing without showing signs of corrosion.The standard testing period for ball bearings is 120 hours.

As we can see, after 120 hours of testing, the AISI 420 stainless steel AC+ has remained virtually untouched by corrosion. There is no rust mark on the inner and outer ring of the bearing, only some rust spots on the oil groove.

So, although stainless steel has excellent anticorrosion properties, them can vary in each of its grades. For this reason, to count on the advice of experts that can assure us the quality and features of their bearings, as the ZEN Bearings team does, is a key factor when achieving the best performance on the final products.

Founded in 1993 the ZEN Group, is a manufacturer of bearings according to German DIN quality standards for a wide range of industrial applications. From their three production plants in China, their products are distributed globally through their strong distribution network.

Quality is what defines them better. It is a mindset for all members of their team and it’s integrated through each step of their manufacturing process, from the sourcing of their raw materials right through to the aftercare once the product has been delivered.

Its ISO 9001 certified quality control centre is a key piece in this process. This facility covers more than 5.000 squares meters, featuring state-of-the-art testing equipment and a great team of highly-qualified inspectors who are working every day to ensure a high level of quality.

If you want to know more about the test results, they are available to download on our web. Also, if you have any further questions the ZEN team would be happy to hear from you.

For more information about the ZEN Group visit www.zen.biz.

This article is published in BearingNews December 2021 issue