Air Knife & Air Nozzles

There is an almost endless number of application considerations for determining whether Sonic XE air knives or Sonic air nozzles produce the most effective and efficient blower-driven results. Generally, air knives deliver laminar airflow over a wide surface area, while air nozzles are better suited to narrow targeted surfaces. Whichever combination of blower power and impact air force you choose, just remember to request a Sonic blow-off performance guarantee.

If Sonic doesn’t already have a suitable design out of the hundreds of standard and customized air knife and nozzle models we have to choose from, contact us and we will be happy to design one to meet your needs.

Sonic Air Systems was born out of the 1980s Montreal Protocol, which was necessitated by Earth’s sustainability crisis. The over-use of industrial fluorocarbons, CFCs & HCFCs specifically, was severely damaging our planet’s radiation-blocking stratospheric ozone layer. The nearly total worldwide ban on these chemicals resulted in many products and industries quickly switching to water-based chemistries for coatings, lubricants, and cleaning agents. Sonic air knives became the go-to solution for the blow-off of these new chemistries. Sonic was on the sustainability forefront again for both potable water conservation and electric energy reduction before our ecological contribution expanded further into more areas of CO2 emissions reduction, a variety of recycling enhancements, and other industry best practices.

The majority of Sonic air knives and air nozzles have no moving parts and therefore, require little or no regular maintenance. For those industries that specify Sonic Sanitary or E-Z Clean Air Knives for food, pharma, medical devices, and other critical cleanliness blow-off air, these Sonic designs facilitate industry compliance. There are also Sonic air knives with static ionizing bars, self-propelled rotary air knives, and other specialty designs that require some annual or bi-annual maintenance.

Sonic air knives are available in a variety of materials suitable for standard duty, medium duty, heavy-duty, and extra heavy duty based on whatever is most suitable for the industry and application they will be operating in. The life expectancy for most customers is indefinite, but if the duty rating turns out to be shorter than required, usually because of the environment, Sonic can construct the next replacement to better suit whatever the current conditions are.

Prior to the creation of the non-contact high air velocity blower powered air knife industry product surface processes such as drying, coating control, heating, cooling, and debris removal were all performed using either mechanical contact methods (scrapers, rollers, or towels) and other types of non-contact options (high pressure compressed air, radiant heaters or just very long conveyor runs), all of which require significantly high energy, substantially higher acquisition costs, additional factory floor space and more costly recurring maintenance. Not only do Sonic air knives operate at 95% exit air efficiency, but our wide range of non-contact air knife and air nozzle technology is second to none for the fastest drying times, highest energy efficiency, smallest production line space allocation, and the most uniform coverage, Sonic also provides a written performance guarantee for virtually every system that we quote.

Although we specialize in optimizing effectiveness and efficiency when we pair Sonic air knives and nozzles with the appropriately sized Sonic blower, we also have a wide range of end-user and OEM customers who specify the type, profile size, length of the Sonic XE air knives which they prefer above all others for use with their existing non-Sonic blowers.

Sonic’s air engineering team consists of specialists in all aspects of the successful integration, installation, and operation of our centrifugal blowers and air knife systems on any existing production line or within any new open or totally enclosed conveying system. Ensuring the success of a Sonic installation requires our collaboration with and understanding of a customer’s products and their production line dynamics (mechanicals, electricals, air flows, liquids, temperatures, and material handling) to deliver the most effective and efficient system.