Developing ATEX process in record time

When the request from Finland for handling peat pellets came in, WWTec actually already had a full schedule for the entire calendar year. Of course, we still discussed the desired solution in consultation with the customer. Peat pellets were to be conveyed from a storage hall to a reactor 300m away. Normally, this is done via a pneumatic conveying line. However, a standby solution was still needed for downtime and maintenance work. It quickly became clear that we could not build a new machine for the desired process – the time objective as well as the personnel resources were simply too tight. In addition, at that time an extreme backlog in the supply chains led to unprecedented waiting times for standard components.

Many companies would probably have turned down an order here. Our team at WWTec has a special gift for “inventing” solutions out-of-the-box. An employee with a connection to agricultural machinery came up with the idea of using used potato belt wagons to transport the peat pellets from the warehouse to the silo. There, the carts reverse to a hopper with a filter and rotary valve. The conveyors move the material into the hopper and from there it is pneumatically conveyed up into the silo. We produce the required conveying and process air with our own compressors, which are installed in an adjacent 20-foot standard container. Thus, the machine runs self-sufficiently and is independent of maintenance work on the existing conveying stream.

Since the dust from peat pellets is explosive, the whole thing had to be adapted and tested according to the ATEX directive. Here we have an excellent partner in Bureau Veritas, which supports us from development to acceptance on site. With the described equipment from the second-hand market and from the existing WWTec rental park, this machine could be completed in record time during an economically difficult phase. The customer is pleased with a flexible, mobile and above all safe solution for handling peat pellets.