EUROTAB has pushed the limits of its binder-free compaction technology even further. This advance will enable industry to better valorize their by-products and fine powders, specially users and producers of industrial minerals and ores. This innovation will foster the sustainable economy, in industries where conventional technologies could not.
A major player in powder compaction (tableting), the technological and industrial SME, EUROTAB, continues its diversification by innovating in industrial minerals. Capitalizing on its process and equipment expertise, the company is aiming to create added value in this colossal market, where they are able to provide an adapted and effective response to the economic, environmental and societal problems of an entire sector.
Industry in quest of a sustainable economy
Industry, and particularly users and producers of industrial minerals and ores, is today confronted with environmental and profitability issues due to changes in regulations surrounding waste disposal and its associated costs, the rarefaction of raw materials and an increase in manufacturing and manpower costs that will certainly increase with time. The steel industry can be used to illustrate this.
Steel manufacturing is technologically segmented into two branches: the BF/BOF branch using the Blast Furnace/Basic Oxygen Furnace (58% in EU), and the EAF branch using the Electric Arc Furnace (42% in EU). The BOF process generates 450 kg of waste (by-products) for every ton of crude steel produced, while EAF generates 180 kg. Over the past 20 years, the steel industry's recovery rate of by-products has increased significantly. However, the last mile to zero-waste has proven very difficult, and since 2012 the material efficiency rate has stagnated. In Europe, over 4 million tons of EAF-generated by-products are yet to find their way to being economically upgraded or recycled. These by-products, however, contain valuable raw materials.
In this context, technology providing sustainable solutions for upgrading such waste and/or optimising the use of raw material resources in a sustainable manner will definitively be one of the levers in maintaining the competitiveness of this industry, as well as complying with European Waste Legislation.
EUROTAB, innovation in industrial minerals compaction
Binder-free compaction is an innovative cold agglomeration technique. It enables powdered materials to be transformed into a solid shape, known as a tablet. Thanks to this process, the tablet benefits from a strong mechanical resistance and without the use of any additives, contrary to alternative technology such as briquetting.
Current mechanical processing solutions for by-product recycling or usage of fines, besides having poor output performance, require the recycled fines to stay outside for long periods of time - otherwise known as "curing time", usually several days - before being reinjected into the process. This open loop process, coupled with a high production volume, makes the whole process a logistical nightmare and economically unviable.
The characteristics of the tablets obtained using EUROTAB's technology, either enable them to be reintroduced directly into the process or to produce a valuable product. This could lead to the non-upgraded finely powdered by-products and raw material fines being recycled or used almost at 100% in several industries.
Eurotab's technology relies on binder-free compaction, which consists of compressing a powder located within a die with two punches that fragment the powder particles to yield a cohesive compact called a tablet. Whereas this technology is widely used in the pharmaceutical industry, for manufacturing consumer goods and metallic catalysts, its operating window has so far been limited. EUROTAB's innovation lies in the combination of high pressure / high load and high output.
EUROTAB has pushed its powder compaction technology beyond its original limits in the tableting of consumer goods such as automatic dishwashing and detergent tablets, coffee and bouillon cubes), Through innovative thinking and equipment design, they yield tableting of industrial minerals in applying high compaction pressures at high speed. This approach has been successfully carried over on compaction of finely powdered raw materials, with the design of prototype compaction equipment. This latter has been used to validate on the equipment some of the technology choices as well as to confirm the technical viability of such a process.
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