Unlike many connector manufacturers, Harwin is a vertically integrated manufacturing company that keeps not only the electrolytic surface finishing but all other essential manufacturing operations under one roof. This allows the company to be highly innovative and responsible. Using the previous technology, and due to the company's rapid growth, Harwin was using 7,000 liters of water per hour. The new facility means the company will use the same amount of water in two weeks.
The new plant, which uses resin filter technology supplied by PureTech, cleans all the rinse water and recycles it back into the plating area. The heavy metals, gold and tin, cleaned by the water can then be recovered. While this is already common practice for gold, it is an industry first to recover tin using this process.
According to Andrew McQuilken, CEO of Harwin: “We should also see an improvement in the quality of the water used in the electroplating line, which will help maintain a high-quality metallized finish on our products. Currently, using ordinary tap water, the conductivity level is typically 400-600 microsiemens – the recycled water after treatment will be below 5 microsiemens. Furthermore, this new investment puts us ahead of upcoming European legislation.”.
