Austria/Canada: Canada-based Solex Thermal Science has been selected by Austria-based Cemtec for a mineral cooling project based in Central Europe. As part of the agreement, Solex will deliver a customised plate-based moving bed heat exchanger (MBHE) that will be used to indirectly cool a milled, mineral-based powder that’s similar to cement. The unit is expected to be delivered by the summer of 2022.

Solex says that the use of a welded plate-channel design allows the powder to flow by gravity within a vertically orientated exchanger and between banks of stainless-steel plates. A heat transfer fluid passes within the plates to cool the material by conduction. The use of indirect heat transfer technology, combined with customised plate spacing, provides the necessary residence time to eliminate caking within the unit while also ensuring consistent temperature profiles at the outlet.

“We are excited to bring our decades of thermal engineering experience to this collaboration with Cemtec,” said Gerald Marinitsch, Global Director, Industrials for Solex Thermal Science. “We are confident that our MBHE technology will provide a reliable, real-world solution to this unique and important cooling application.”

Cemtec is a specialist in providing wet and dry grinding technologies for many types of bulk materials and minerals including the cement sector. Solex Thermal Science develops indirect heat exchange technology for the heating, cooling and drying of free-flowing granular materials such as solid granules, pellets, beans, seeds and particles.