Emission reduction at animal feed producer FransenGerrits

The challenge: risk of high fines due to excessive emissions

Fransen Gerrits BV is a major manufacturer of animal feed in the south-east of the Netherlands. Fransen Gerrits' annual production exceeds 450,000 tonnes of compound feed for pigs, cattle and poultry. This places the company among the 10 largest animal feed producers in the Netherlands.

At Fransen Gerrits' plant, vitamins, minerals and salts are pumped by air transport through a pipe into the silos provided for this purpose. This is done at a rate of 25 tonnes of powder per hour. When filling the silos, it is important that air escapes, but the product remains in place.

To achieve this, each silo is equipped with a dedusting unit. These installations contain 20 filter mats with a filter area of 1 m2.
When very fine raw materials were stored in the silos, leakage and therefore emission to the outside occurred. Due to the high air velocity and fineness of product, the filter surface could no longer fully contain dust.

Consequences:

•    Fine dust emissions to outside above the legal value of 5mg/Nm3
•    Pollution of the plant and thus an unhealthy and unsafe work situation
•    Short service life of filter folders
•    Unnecessary product loss

If this situation was maintained, the firm ran the risk of high fines due to excessive emissions. In addition, the emissions caused clean-up costs and damage to filters.

The solution: correct air and product flow

The shape of the dedusting unit combined with a tangential product feed resulted in unnecessary air-product swirl in the filter box. This resulted in an unnecessarily high filter load. Vlint solved the problem by taking the velocity out of the product as it enters the silo. The product supply pipe now enters the cabinet in a different way, with a special adjustment taking the velocity out of the product.

The result: no new filter boxes required

Vlint's technical solution has resulted in the problem now being completely eliminated. Emissions remain within the norm and the buildings remain clean. This saves Fransen Gerrits a lot of costs. The company considered investing in new filter boxes, but this is now no longer necessary.

Want to know more about how to extend the life of filters? Download for free our whitepaper with 10 tips for

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