Subsidiaries - Amandus Kahl Group

amandus kahl
ASIA: COKE DUST PELLETS FOR STEEL SMELTING FURNACES
The pellets are fed into blast furnaces for steel production.
Acting as a service contractor of the major Asian steel man-
ufacturer, our customer processes coke dust from the filters
of coke lines. The coke dust is provided free of charge. The
value of the pellets might correspond to that of coke which
has varied between $ 190.00, and $ 680.00 in recent years.
Our customer imports mainly coking coal for his own cok-
ing plants, to a certain extent he also imports ready made
coke. The aim is to reduce the coke import and to optimise
his own coke production process in order improve the qual-
ity of the produced coke. This includes a more efficient use
of the dust produced in the coking plants. Four coke lines
are in operation, each of which produces 1.2 million tons of
coke per year. Approx. 120,000 tons of fines are produced
per line. The fines collected in the filters of the coke lines
are used as raw material for the pelleting lines. A fifth coke
line is being built which is scheduled to be completed in
2010.
At present 3 pelleting lines equipped with pelleting presses
type 39-1000 are in operation. Their throughput capacity
is 5 – 6 t/h each. Pellets with a diameter of 4.5 mm are pro-
duced. The first two presses were put into operation in April
2008, the third one in July 2009. In the next 3 years another
5 pelleting plants by Amandus Kahl are to be installed.
Coke dust pellets meet two important goals. First, full-value
coke is obtained and the dusts do not have to be sold below
their value – after all, the dusts have caused high cost for raw
material, transport and the coking process. Second, due to their
homogeneity, the pellets have a defined sinking behaviour in
the blast furnace, which improves the steel production process.
Fig. 1 pelleting press type 39-1000
Fig. 2 Empty fruit bunches (l.) and biomass pellets (/r.)
Fig. 3 Crown expander
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SUCCESS IN THE OIL PALM INDUSTRY –
KAHL HAS TAKEN THE FIRST FLAT DIE PELLETING PRESS FOR
PELLETS FROM EMPTY FRUIT BUNCHES INTO OPERATION
The first flat die pelleting press for the production of biomass pellets from Empty Fruit Bunches has been put into operation in
malaysia – the pelleting press 45-1250 with a drive power of 315 kW for a capacity of up to 5 t/h. The pellets are intended for exam-
ple for energy production and for refinement into ethanol in the BTL process. With pelleting plants for oil palm fronds, Amandus
Kahl has already gained an excellent reputation in malaysia and regularly delivers pelleting presses to that country. EFBs have been
the centre of interest of the biomass industry for some time as large quantities of EFBs are produced as a residue in palm oil mills,
which means that they do not produce any transport costs for raw material supply. The largest producers of palm oil are malaysia
and Indonesia. Palm oil is also produced in Africa, South America and other Southeast Asian countries.
THE CROWN ExPANDER: PELLETING WITHOUT A PELLETING PRESS
Our customers operate more than 600 expanders worldwide.
In the u.S.A. for example, turkey fattening feed is expanded
before pelleting in most cases. The annular gap expander has
proved to be a good solution also in other fields such as starch
modification or the oilseeds-processing industry. And last but
not least, we have developed our Kahl extruder on the basis
of the expander. With the extruder even higher mechanical
energy inputs and modification degrees can be realised, and
the products – fish feed, petfood, and snacks – can be pelleted
or given other defined shapes. For quite some time, there has
been a clear tendency towards coarse grinding of feed.
Amandus Kahl remembered that in the annular gap expander,
coarse grinding structures remain largely unchanged, although
the product is exposed to a strong pressure and kneading effect.
The pressure load in the expander acts on all sides of the
coarse particles. The homogeneous pressure distribution on
the entire particle circumference is supported by embedding
these coarse particles in a pasty moist matrix of fine particles.
Another advantage lies in the fact that the finer particles are
agglomerated during expansion and thus are transformed into
coarse structures. It occurred to our engineers that they might
equip the expander outlet with an annular die similar to that of
a pelleting press. A die without pan grinder rollers to be more
precise, as they wondered: Should the high internal pressure
of the expander not be able to press the finished product right
through the round or oblong bores in the die ring, thus making
the pressing and crushing effect of pan grinder rollers superfluous?
– A rotating cutter was designed, meant to cut the product
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strands leaving the die to uniform pellet lengths. So the »Crown
Expander« was born. The machine owes its name to the crown
form of the first dies which were provided with slits instead of
bores.
One important component of the annular gap expander remained
unchanged in the Crown expander: The hydraulically
moveable cone. This cone can be moved into and out of the
crown die at the outlet end. Depending on the position of the
cone in the die, more or less die bores are open for the production
of pellets. Thus the pelleting process is easy to control by
simply varying the cone position – in contrast to conventional
extrusion processes which require die changes or far more
complicated control mechanisms.
The results obtained so far, have met every expectation, which
means that we succeeded in the proverbial »squaring of the circle«:
The Crown expander produces pellets or other regularly
shaped structures while preserving coarse particles and simultaneously
agglomerating fine and finest components. The positive
nutritional effect of expansion is an additional advantage
which traditional pelleting does not offer.
The crown expander – an ideal example of a successful further
development taking into account aspects of animal nutrition
and process technology.