The ice cylinder
A customer request required a complete change of thinking on our part. One of our employees proved with an extraordinary idea – and a box of dry ice – that we were up to the task.
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The powerful starch plate
"CONIDUR® plates had never actually been an issue in the starch industry. In this application, plates are used to wash out starch fibers, for example when potatoes or peas are processed into starch. A large number of plates and linings are suitable for this purpose – such as wire mesh, round perforated plates, etched plates, water-jet perforated plates, etc. But after the initial inquiries, our interest was piqued in how CONIDUR® could be used in the starch sector."
Andreas Langen knows all the features of CONIDUR® products. Therefore, the HEIN, LEHMANN sales director knew one thing very well: the challenge in this case was that the open area of the CONIDUR® plates is relatively small for this type of application. The overall open area was too small in comparision to the plates used quite successfully up to then.
"The matter was still interesting for our customers. CONIDUR® plates offer the special feature that their plate thickness can be many times the hole size. A CONIDUR® plate can have a thickness of one millimeter, while the perforation is only 0.1 millimeters. This means that the plate can be much thicker than the hole diameter."
Our customers expected the CONIDUR® properties to provide greater stability, improved service life and, due to the special conical hole shape, better drying of the starch fibers.
"Our development work was to increase (improve) the open area and produce smaller holes. New tools were developed especially for this. The smallest perforations to date were 0.06 millimeters with a hole spacing of 1.6 millimeters in the initial thickness of 0.35 mm. Now we were able to achieve perforations of 0.05 mm, with a hole spacing up to 0.8 millimeters and an initial plate thickness of 0.2 millimeters."
The new developments worked perfectly for the starch industry and are very popular in this sector to this day – for instance on account of improved dewatering and longer service life. This is especially important in the starch industry due to blockages and repairs.
Do you have individual requirements and like future-oriented in-house developments? Then contact us – we will gladly advise you!
