Key Considerations for Building or Upgrading a Facility

In this article, we will discuss the relevant aspects when working on a Solids handling facility design. Designing or upgrading a facility involves many factors. Local conditions play a critical role in selecting the right approach for solids handling. Site evaluation should consider aspects like land availability, land use, proximity to homes, and local preferences. Treatment and disposal solutions are also important considerations. Additionally, regulatory standards, legislation, and operational protocols significantly influence the design.

One of the main challenges in building a solids handling facility is ensuring it remains flexible. Regulations, economic conditions, and demand can change over time, and a facility must be able to adapt. Furthermore, businesses often face shifts in their product portfolio, so facilities need to accommodate changes in product flow and output demand.

Delft Solids Solutions offers expert support in evaluating, designing, and implementing solids handling programs. Our extensive experience in investigations, pilot studies, and research & development is essential for solving complex process and product challenges.

A prime example of our work is a process difficulty encountered with a product produced in a spray-drying setup. Initially, the product was stable, but it became unexpectedly sticky after several days of successful production. This issue often arises from settings in the spray dryer, particularly input and output temperatures.

In this case, the spray dryer used environmental air, which can change temperature and humidity dramatically from day to day. These fluctuations led to the product becoming sticky. Our solution involved performing stickiness research, which focused on variable temperature and relative humidity conditions. This allowed us to predict when the product would become sticky and optimize the spray dryer settings accordingly. By keeping the conditions out of the sticky range, production output was improved.

Such conditions are highly material-specific and depend on factors like particle size, morphology, and crystalline properties. Our research can identify the optimal settings to avoid production problems and improve efficiency.

At Delft Solids Solutions, our research laboratory specializes in solving complex physio-chemical problems in materials science. We use dedicated setups to study flow behavior, shear, cohesiveness, dustiness, attrition, particle strength, wettability, and powder mixing. These studies provide valuable insights into optimizing your operational process and solids handling.

Our laboratory also investigates more fundamental physical properties, including specific surface area, adsorption, porosity, pore size, chemical composition, and particle size. We also study sprays and aerosols. Our methodologies adhere to ASTM and ISO standards, ensuring high-quality, reliable results tailored to your specifications.

We not only provide solutions for existing problems but also recommend consulting with a physio-chemical research organization before building your facility. Preventing issues upfront is always more cost-effective than addressing them later.

Our investigations are conducted in close collaboration with clients to ensure that conditions match the specific application or problem. Our laboratory offers a broad range of instruments and specialized setups, supported by a modern workshop that allows us to design custom accessories as needed.

Each investigation is accompanied by a full analysis report, which includes detailed results, a discussion, and background information on the methodologies and equipment used. Our extensive experience in Research & Development, combined with our advanced laboratory resources, allows us to provide expert advice on a wide range of solids-related issues, including production challenges, segregation or mixing problems, flow issues, caking, hopper design, attrition, and dustiness.