Silvent's engineers having a meeting.

The story of Silvent

How it all began. Noisy industry demanded new technology.

Noise has been a challenge since modern manufacturing emerged. Early on, neither trade unions nor companies knew just how dangerous noise was. Ignorance led to hearing loss for many industrial workers. And so it became clear that a better understanding and a solution to the problem was necessary.

It became apparent in the beginning of the 1970s that many people in industry were suffering from hearing loss. Accordingly, the labor market parties in Sweden set up a group tasked with investigating the problem and present-ing a proposal on how to reduce noise. Acoustic engineer Stig Ingemansson was commissioned to lead the project.

Old pictures of Silvent's founder Peder Ekberg and engineer Stig Andersson.

1976 – The beginning

To get more information on the problem, the project group began by conducting field studies and measurements in Swedish industry. It became apparent that almost every in-dustry had noise problems, i.e. sound levels above 85 dB(A). Blowing with compressed air was one of the pro-cesses that generated the most noise. It was noted that many of the companies used ordinary copper pipes, aka open pipes, for cleaning, drying, cooling, transporting and sorting with compressed air. Or they used air blow guns based on the same principle, an open pipe. Following an analysis of other markets in Europe and the United States, the markets were also discovered to use the same method. The problem with blowing compressed air through open pipes is the increased air turbulence created as soon as the air leaves the pipe. This results in very high, harmful sound levels. The project team understood they needed to develop a new solution if they were to reduce sound levels and hearing loss.

Silvent's first air nozzle, SILVENT 209.

1978 – the prototype Silvent is patented

Creating a solution was a challenging undertaking. There was no earlier research in the field, nor any simulation soft-ware. What’s more, the production of prototypes was both time-consuming and difficult. It took several years of development before the Group developed a prototype in 1978 using technology that significantly reduced the sound level when blowing. The prototype was patented and named Silvent, an abbreviation of the Latin words for quiet wind; silencum ventum. The prototype still forms part of the air nozzle range and is known as SILVENT 209.

1989 – the Silvent company is founded

Because Ingemansson, who led the project, was never in-terested in selling air nozzles, he sold the patent rights for the prototype Silvent. For a few years there was no devel-opment. But the big breakthrough came in 1989 when Peder Ekberg and Åke Eliasson founded Silvent AB. Their passion and focus on R&D led more and more major cor-porations around the world to become aware of Silvent and its unique air nozzles. A success story had begun.

Facts about SILVENT 209

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The world's first patented air nozzle
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Replaces 4 mm open pipe
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Reduces the sound level by 15 dB(A)
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37% energy savings
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Hundreds of thousands of installations since 1989
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Still a top seller even though many customers nowadays use SILVENT 209 L-S

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