Key Technology, a member of the Duravant family of operating companies, introduced its reversible Zephyr conveyor. Designed to achieve higher capacities than other horizontal-motion conveyors, Zephyr gently moves product with minimal bounce to protect product quality and reduce noise. Now equipped to flow in either direction, the reversible Zephyr maximizes production line versatility while improving sanitation and minimizing maintenance, the company says.

“We’ve made design changes to our field-proven Zephyr to expand its capabilities and meet the needs of even more food processors. Previously, if customers needed to redirect a product stream, they had two options—diverter gates and reversible belt conveyors— both of which have more moving parts that require additional cleaning and service,” says Rudy Sanchez, process systems product development manager at Key. “The new modified Zephyr offers the same simple design, great sanitation and low maintenance as our standard model but now with a reversible function.”

The reversible Zephyr is designed for frozen bulk foods including potato products, fruits, vegetables, meat and poultry, as well as dry products like potato chips/crisps, nuts and cereals. Zephyr’s unique motion profile gently slides and conveys product with no segregation or stratification, and it reduces product damage and the loss of coatings such as seasoning, batter and certain types of oil. Key says the Zephyr offers up to twice the throughput of other horizontal-motion conveyors, while limiting noise to 75 decibels or less.

When integrated with pneumatic controls on the production floor, the reversible Zephyr allows processors to change direction of product flow with either the push of a button or automatically if fully integrated with the line. Reversible Zephyr can be configured to separate a single product stream to two side-by-side machines or even divert a single stream to two different downstream production lines to produce different products.

Zephyr’s construction helps maximize sanitation, ease cleaning and reduce maintenance. Its drive system requires no timing set up and can be located in any position below the bed to support seamless integration with other equipment in the line.

With a bed width and length can be tailored for individual customer applications, Zephyr can be equipped with a variety of options including slide gates for scale feed distribution, a discharge to enhance multi-head weighing or a bias to spread product when feeding downstream systems. It can also be configured with a stop-start mode for scale feeding or product distribution. Zephyr accommodates varying product flow rates, maximizing the flexibility of the system to meet a broad range of customer requirements.

The reversible capability is available on new Zephyr conveyors and as a field upgrade for installed systems. For more information on Zephyr, visit https://www.key.net/en/products/zephyr-horizontal-motion-conveyor/.