Happy 25th Birthday to these 24/7 Scrubbers!

 23-Apr-21 An array of 12 TORBED dry gas scrubbers, each 6m in diameter, has been in 24/7 operation at New Zealand Aluminium Smelters now for 25 years providing world leading performance. 

These dry gas scrubbers remove highly corrosive hydrogen fluoride (HF) from the exhaust gases from the smelter in order to stay within discharge limits. The chart below was fist published in New Zealand's Aluminium Smelter Sustainable Development Report in 2016.

New high temperature 'Hybrid Microwave TORBED' (HMT) technology is demonstrating its huge potential

31-Mar-21 High temperature microwave processes have the potential to provide step changes in energy and resource efficiency and unlock markets worth £140 billion across sectors as diverse as food, catalysis, mineral processing, industrial minerals, and energy. 

These applications have significant promise at laboratory scale with over 2000 journal papers published annually. However, few if any, applications of microwave technology exist at a commercial scale above 200°C.

Attempts to date have failed due to the range and complexity of a number of multidisciplinary challenges which must all be addressed to reliably scale up. Work at the University of Nottingham has shown that solutions to these challenges relate to integration of expertise around materials of construction, microwave/material interactions and changing microwave property absorption, and process engineering.

The new high temperature hybrid microwave TORBED (HMT) which is currently being demonstrated is absolutely unique in the marketplace. A second industrial scale plant is in production for installation later in 2021.

This technology overcomes the challenges presented above and offers unmatched levels of process control and microwave selectivity. 

This platform enables collaborative work with interested end users to demonstrate both the technical and commercial business case for this unique new platform technology for specific sectors and applications. 

Confidential discussions are currently underway with blue chip end users in various sectors. Interested parties are invited to contact us for further discussions.

More wood driers

06-Apr-20 Four more large scale wood driers have been shipped and are being commissioned. These biomass fired wood driers are definitely leading the way with their small size and increased efficiency.

Torftech - advancing technologies for advancing industries

10-Jan-2020 This photograph shows a blade ring for a 200mm diameter TORBED processor.  Designed by Torftech and 3D printed in high temperature resin at the University of Newcastle, it is shown whilst curing.
 

Part of ongoing work on carbon capture being carried out by the University, this processor will take the exhaust gas from a small scale biomass boiler and allow it to flow through potential carbon capture reagents to allow kinetic and breakthrough testing of the material and process.  The use of 3D printing techniques has made what would otherwise have been a complex and costly fabrication, feasible and cost effective.  This ongoing collaboration previously saw production of the smallest working TORBED processor at 50mm internal diameter.

A baby in the family!

03-Apr-19 The largest ever TORBED processor installation is a bank of T6000 units, with an internal diameter of 6 metres, for scrubbing HF from an aluminium smelter exhaust gas each TORBED unit handling ± 250,000 m³/h of gas. Working with the University of Newcastle, we have now gone to the other extreme and created a T50 TORBED processor with an internal diameter 50mm. It will be used to screen adsorbent materials for carbon capture as part of an EPSRC collaboration with Heriot Watt and Sheffield Universities.

This is the first TORBED processor not fabricated principally from metal. This “micro” processor is no more than 12cm in height. 3D printed in high temperature polymer it enables rapid screening of sorbents at temperatures over 200°C and at pressures of 3 bar. Although substantially smaller than typical industrial TORBED units, the ‘correct’ and unique swirling flow formulation of the TORBED processor is preserved at this small scale. It illustrates perfectly the Torftech technology’s qualities of low resource use, high specific throughputs, flexibility and high process efficiency.

Large scale biomass drying continues to grow in Poland

22-Mar-19  TORBED processors make both economic and environmental sense.  Typically smaller and lighter than competing equipment, it takes less resource to make and operate them.  Their simplicity means that nearly all of them are remotely operated, saving on manpower cost.   Their accuracy gives process control, consistent quality output and reduced energy consumption.

These qualities are illustrated by the growing fleet of TORBED biomass driers in Poland.  The latest two to be installed, the fifth and sixth, have been brought into operation.  These large 4.5m diameter TORBED driers are each capable of handling up to 10 tonnes per hour of biomass at 50% moisture content.   Most of the feed for these latest systems will be sawdust, demonstrating again our technology’s abilities with fine materials.

We expect more of these systems to be installed between now and the end of 2019.

A production line of TORBED Mineral Processors

22-Feb-19 This is the first time we have seen a production line of mineral processors being constructed. These units which are to be applied to the exfoliation, or puffing up, of vermiculite are state of the art as they were when first introduced. The technology uses less energy, produces a better exfoliated product and does not release fines into the environment. Each plant saves 150 tonnes of CO2 per year from being emitted to atmosphere - what's not to like!