Luca Zappetti, process engineer and project manager with Instalmec srl of San Giorgio di Nogaro, Udine, said that 2009 was a very good year for the company, even if Europe in general, and the company’s traditionally strong Italian market in particular, were not so good.
Having said that, Instalmec started up a new cleaning system for recycled wood in Poland in 2009 which processes 400m3/hour of material for particleboard production. This project was supplied directly to Pfleiderer’s factory in Wieruszów.
“It was the third such plant for us and the first outside Italy (and for an international group),said Mr Zappetti. “We guaranteed a cleaning efficiency of more than 95% in our offer and this was achieved. “The plant takes out all metals, stones, glass, plastic, etc and also has a system to clean the dust to remove sand, making it OK to burn. This project has generated a lot of interest among our other customers, too.”
Another success claimed by Mr Zappetti for Instalmec in 2009 was the supply of two different installations in the field of pellet production for fuel.
“In the pellet field, we also offer a gravimetric separator as a pre-dryer and this is another innovation of the last two or three years,continued Mr Zappetti. “It replaces the traditional Omega pre-dryer and also cleans the material at the same time, removing heavy pollutants like stones and glass.”
At La Tiesse, the biggest pellet producer in Italy, Instalmec supplied a 30 tonne per hour-input gravimetric separator to add to its existing dryer to increase capacity and remove smaller pollutants.
In combustion, Instalmec has sold one of its new generation combustion chambers to a pellet-producing client in Hungary. The system, with a capacity of 6.8MW, has an exhaust recycling system capable of a fuel saving of around 20%. It is not fired by dust, but by particles from the chip dryer, which Mr Zappetti says is cheaper than using a moving-grate system.
One of the latest innovations for Instalmec, patented three years ago for particleboard plants, is the Low Pressure Drop (LPD) cyclone. Four of these units are to be supplied to Italian panel maker Bipan to be installed on an existing MDF dryer as the first application in MDF.
“The very low pressure drop compared with traditional cyclones was achieved by studying the flow dynamics in cyclones,said Mr Zappetti, explaining that the design of the air outlet, the internal helical scroll (for specific applications) and the installation of a special finned flow breaker system enable the separation of material at a lower air speed compared with traditional cyclones.
The lower air speed reduces wear and saves electrical energy thanks to the lower pressure drop (about half the pressure drop in conventional cyclones). One kilowatt saved is €1,000/year saved, according to Mr Zappetti.
“We have done a lot of research into energy-saving and wear-reduction generally and think this will become a main target for panel makers,he said. The system also involves a lighter structure, which is also lower and thus has less visual impact, and reduced installation costs, he claimed.
“We have a highly-skilled workshop, engineering know-how and flexibility,said Mr Zappetti “That has been very helpful to us in the past year in finding new business.”
