Orthos on tour: Holland 2010 – mixers, dryers and screw heat exchangers?!

We recently made a trip around central and southern Holland to visit three of Orthos’ principals involved in process equipment.  The main event of the expedition was a European agent meeting at °Celsius, the screw heat exchanger division of Van Beek, for whom Orthos have recently become UK agents – more news on that later.

Tema Process
Following an early flight out we were off and running, arriving in Heerde (nr. Zwolle) just in time for lunch with Albert Brand and the irrepressible Henk Dijkman of Tema Process.  After a tour round the new factory, during which we saw several machines in production, we stopped off at the test centre to see some interesting new developments coming next year – some we’ve no doubt will be very popular in the UK once Tema complete their prototype test programs later this year.  Once we’d admired one of the new service vans we spent the rest of the afternoon discussing some ideas for a biomass-related process.

Lindor
The next destination on our tour was Dordrecht; Holland’s oldest city, and home to Lindor Products (the gentle touch in mixing) where we had a meeting with MD Bastiaan Soeteman.  We hadn’t been at Lindor for a while so it was great to see the guys again and meet some new faces.

Engineering manager Akko van der Lee took time out to show us Lindor’s clever new ultrasonic liquid injection system for spray-coating powders and granules with liquid additives.  This package features extremely accurate control of droplet size and flow pattern allowing even distribution inside the mixing drum.  Potential applications include detergent additive coating and tea flavouring.

Highlight of the visit was our introduction to Lindor’s latest addition to their mixer range, a 100 litre pilot scale unit.  Conceived at customer request to bridge the gap between the old L70 and the next largest L200, the L100 is a mobile unit with a common feed & discharge port so the mixer is filled or emptied depending on its orientation (see video).

°Celsius
The final leg of the journey would take us to the municipality of ‘s-Hertogenbosch – commonly abbreviated to “Den Bosch” (fortunately for us!)  We were in new territory here and it represented our first visit to the headquarters of Orthos’ latest principal, Van Beek, for whom we will be selling their screw heat exchangers, marketed as °Celsius.  Able to heat, cool or dry powders and granules, °Celsius are specialists in thermal screw transport in varied applications ranging from chocolate powder cooling to egg shell drying.  Peter-Paul Rutten welcomed us to the European agents meeting where we enjoyed two days of product training, presentations, a factory tour and two local client visits led by Marco Geradts.

Through our association with Eirich Maschinenfabrik and Tema Process, Orthos already have a long experience in thermal processing technology.  Our sales manager Andrew Reynolds commented “Through our new relationship with Van Beek we look forward to be able to offer UK clients an even wider range of heating, cooling and drying process equipment to suit every application”.

Martijn van den Hil showed us around °Celsius’s test centre, explaining the main features of each version of their screw heat exchangers.

So as our trip around Holland came to an end, a dramatic lightening storm over Amsterdam concluded our trip (and delayed our return flight) but we were satisfied with our accomplishments and keen to get back home to spread the word.

Coming to a plant near you soon... one of the new Tema Process service vans

Celsius screw heat exchanger test rig with heating/cooling package beside

Inside a paddle type screw heat exchanger test unit at the Celsius test centre

All three styles of screw flight are incorporated into this exhibition unit from Celsius