Spiroflow IN ACTION
Customer requirements

Keeling & Walker Ltd of Stoke-on-Trent, UK is the world’s largest producer of Tin Oxide. Not only is Tin Oxide a very abrasive material, it is very difficult to handle: it smears, doesn’t flow well and readily bridges. So, back in early 2007, when Operations Manager, Martyn Pedley, came to replace a troublesome bucket elevator, he was concerned to find a conveyor that would be man enough for the job. And, in addition, he wanted to eliminate fugitive emissions to improve the working environment too. The problems with the bucket elevator were caused by the abrasive product getting into the chains and other mechanical parts. As a result, it had become too costly to maintain. Martyn Pedley did some research and concluded that either a Flexible Screw Conveyor or an Aero-Mechanical Conveyor would be possible solutions.

Soliant, a paint film manufacturer based in Lancaster, South Carolina, USA, needed a better way to weigh and mix 125 Kg drums of acrylic resin. Employees manually pushed 125 Kg drums filled with the powder to a scale for weighing and adding to a mix. Once weighed out, two employees manually scooped around 700 grm of powder at a time from the drums to the mixing vessel, the beginning stage of the Fluorex™ process.

Savings in downtime and material costs plus improved, faster production have been achieved by Colfix at its Dublin bitumen processing plant by replacing a manually-fed rigid screw conveyor with a Spiroflow bulk bag handling system. The new equipment comprises a Spiroflow Type 2 bulk bag discharger and a Type 5 low loading bulk bag discharger, each having a 2m Model 120 flexible screw conveyor which meters product to a 50 litre transition hopper.