Plant for drying
cereal and high-protein resources

After several vigorous meetings with the client from the Netherlands, JOEST was given the order to manufacture a large drying system. Extruded Cereal Products B.V. is a large producer of extruded cereal and protein products for the food- and animal feed industries.

The client was looking for a plant to dry wheat-based extrudates which vary in size and shape, composition, moisture and temperature. The existing factory offered very little room for the plant.

As a solution, JOEST delivered an extremely compact plant that was based on previous deliveries and optimizations in 2004 and 2014. The system covers four levels of the factory and uses a sophisticated pipeline layout to make the most of the available space.

Its main components are a JOEST Fluidized Bed Dryer, a downstream screen, the required processing technology, ventilation equipment and the electronic control featuring a process visualization. The ventilation equipment includes fans, a steam air heater, cyclones, pipelines and an exhaust air heat exchanger.

The Fluidized Bed Dryer is more than six meters long and features two drying and one cooling zone. The machine has an electronic oscillation-angle control which enables material retention times to be adjusted during full operation. This way the dryer can be set to optimally match each product. The settings can be saved in the recipe database of the individual product.

The air ventilation system incorporates a partial exhaust air recirculation. The preheated air from the cooling zone and the drying zone are reused for the drying process after being tempered. Additionally, the required fresh air is pre-heated by the warm exhaust air in a heat exchanger. This design results in an energy efficient operation whilst maintaining as much flexibility as possible for different product types. A screen following the dryer separates the material stream into three grain sizes. Furthermore, the entire equipment is noise and heat isolated.

Installation was performed by JOEST in October this year and the cold and warm start-up is scheduled for the end of 2021. Having started in 2004 with the old plant, the partnership and cooperation was expanded throughout this project. Everything worked out to the full satisfaction of the client.