Process belt solutions for added productivity and yield

At Fil­tech, the lead­ing trade fair for fil­tra­tion and sep­a­ra­tion tech­nol­o­gy, the stand of lead­ing inter­na­tion­al tech­ni­cal weavers GKD — Gebr. Kuf­ferath was a real mag­net for the inter­na­tion­al spe­cial­ists in atten­dance. The inte­grat­ed solu­tion com­pe­tence in fil­ter media and process belt solu­tions drew vis­i­tors from numer­ous sec­tors and coun­tries. Inter­est in the process belts pri­mar­i­ly revolved around solu­tions for increas­ing­ly chal­leng­ing process­es in the min­ing indus­try. The core focus was on gyp­sum drainage in phos­phor­ic acid extrac­tion, potash fer­til­iz­er, and flue gas desul­phur­iza­tion, as well as dewa­ter­ing of lithi­um car­bon­ate on con­tin­u­ous vac­u­um belt fil­ter systems.

“There was so much going on dur­ing the first two days,” says Hel­mut Jakob, Senior Sales & Appli­ca­tion Man­ag­er. The entire stand, which was dou­ble the size of last year’s, was full to burst­ing on all three days. Many vis­i­tors were look­ing for par­tic­u­lar­ly fine and porous fil­ter media, which they found in GKD’s indus­tri­al mesh­es. How­ev­er, demand for solu­tions for dynam­ic belt fil­ters was also high. With the Vac­ubelt range of fil­ter belts, GKD offers prod­ucts that guar­an­tee high effi­cien­cy and safe­ty in demand­ing dewa­ter­ing process­es. Devel­oped and pro­duced in Ger­many, they impress with their high trans­verse sta­bil­i­ty and very good direc­tion­al sta­bil­i­ty. This stiff­ness pro­tects against creas­ing in the area of the intake chan­nel in par­tic­u­lar. In addi­tion, the smooth sur­face guar­an­tees accord­ing­ly good cake dis­charge and excel­lent clean­ing per­for­mance. One major source of inquiries dur­ing Fil­tech was fine process belt mesh. This reflects the chal­lenge that the extrac­tive indus­try is fac­ing to increase pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and yield. Vac­ubelt fil­ter belts respond to this need with pore sizes designed to suit spe­cif­ic process­es. For exam­ple, a Vac­ubelt 2015 with 50 µm aper­ture is used for dewa­ter­ing lithi­um car­bon­ate. This belt type has proven its worth around the world in sim­i­lar types of process­es such as gyp­sum drainage in flue gas desul­phur­iza­tion. It also offers a deci­sive advan­tage over com­peti­tors’ prod­ucts: Even on large sys­tem widths of up to 4.35 meters and belt lengths of over 70 meters, this fine belt los­es none of the sta­bil­i­ty for which Vac­ubelt fil­ter belts are known. In addi­tion to the Vac­ubelt 3354 and 3356 belt types for phos­ph­o­gyp­sum dewa­ter­ing, GKD also offers the 1003 screen belt suc­cess­ful­ly used in sewage sludge dewa­ter­ing. These sin­gle-ply vac­u­um fil­ter belts are tai­lored to the respec­tive process and the grain size dis­tri­b­u­tion of the gyp­sum and then ther­mal­ly treat­ed. They there­fore guar­an­tee con­stant high dewa­ter­ing per­for­mance. The Vac­ubelt 5060 fil­ter belt has been well estab­lished in potash fer­til­iz­er pro­duc­tion for years thanks to its high tem­per­a­ture and abra­sion resistance.

Problem solutions for many applications

The effi­cien­cy of this belt range is also high­ly val­ued beyond min­ing appli­ca­tions, with sev­er­al vis­i­tors to the GKD stand inquir­ing about the belts for appli­ca­tions in entire­ly dif­fer­ent indus­tries. For instance, the Vac­ubelt 3354 is a proven alter­na­tive to com­mon prod­ucts made of polypropy­lene in cool­ing lubri­cant fil­tra­tion. This belt type reli­ably retains swarf and par­ti­cles abrad­ed from the grind­ing wheel with­out the addi­tion of fil­tra­tion aids, even with thin fil­ter cakes. “The vis­i­tors had done their home­work ahead of time and were real­ly look­ing for a solu­tion for their appli­ca­tion at our stand,” says Michael Seel­ert, Head of Process Belts, sum­ming up his impres­sion of this year’s Fil­tech. He con­firmed the qual­i­ty of the con­ver­sa­tions held at the fair. There were many inter­est­ing inquiries ? even about new appli­ca­tions, for instance from the con­struc­tion indus­try. Dur­ing dis­cus­sions, the belt experts devel­oped ini­tial approach­es for solu­tions which will be firmed up fol­low­ing the trade fair. Michael Seel­ert also con­sid­ered the par­tic­i­pa­tion of the Insti­tute for Tex­tile Tech­nol­o­gy (ITA) from RWTH Aachen Uni­ver­si­ty to have enriched the whole expe­ri­ence. GKD gave the ITA — one of the largest insti­tutes in the mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing fac­ul­ty — the oppor­tu­ni­ty to present its research top­ics at the trade fair stand. This gave rise to inter­est­ing addi­tion­al start­ing points for dis­cus­sions with cus­tomers and manufacturers.