by MARY M. COX
Manufacturer List
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The waste-to-energy (WTE) market continues to trundle along, whether involving the organic or man-made materials, found in waste. Landfill and fossil fuel usage also continue, but become less pragmatic with every year that passes. Meanwhile, WTE options continue to broaden on a global scale.
Columbus McKinnon Corporation (CM) produces a wide range of tire shredders “known worldwide for producing clean cut, consistently sized chips for alternative fuel for the cement industry, paper pulp mills, electric generating facilities and waste-to-energy plants,” said Charlie Astafan, general manager. The company recently delivered one of their systems to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia where it will produce tire derived fuel for a large manufacturer of cement. CM has also developed a line of hybrid shear shredders for the reduction and recycling of other wastes. The line consists of shredders from 10 to 250 h.p. with feed openings as small as 30” x 18” and up to 90” x 46”. The wide range of machinery can be used to process numerous types of waste to alternative fuels or other recycling applications.
This hybrid line of shredders is offered with traditional one piece shear knives or CM’s patented replaceable knife inserts. This proprietary knife system has been used in CM’s tire shredding machines for the past 35 years. The high quality steel found in tires requires that knives be made of a high grade of hardened tool steel to effectively cut the steel wires cleanly.
Since 1981, the company has manufactured over 400 machines specifically for tire recycling and their systems are in 26 countries and 5 continents. This same technology can be used for other high wear applications in the general waste and recycling industries. The knives come in numerous sizes and configurations, depending on the application. They can be rotated and sharpened numerous times for multiple uses and that can result in a significant cost reduction. CM can also retrofit existing machines with this knife technology.
Komar Systems are utilized to efficiently process and feed bio fuels, MSW/RDF, hazardous, medical and radioactive waste streams. “The Komar Industries continuous plug feed processors have been proven over the last 30 years in some of the most demanding waste stream applications and are available in sizes from 200 lbs. per hour to in excess of 25 tons per hour in a single feed systems. Feed systems can be stacked together to meet higher throughput demands,” stated Mark Koenig, president.
He added, “The unique ability of the patented Komar feed systems to generate a moving plug of material that isolates the feeder from whatever it is feeding in conjunction with the ability to infinitely adjust the continuous feed rate make it the ideal for today’s emerging waste-to-energy technologies, including: gasification, pyrolysis and plasma energy systems and more.”
Komar Systems provide sizing, blending and feeding while in a controlled atmosphere and can handle feedstock in nearly any form from loose to baled. The continuous feedstock delivery system eliminates free air entering the gasifier making downstream gas cleaning and control much simpler.
Komar, an American design and manufacturing company with waste preparation and continuous feed systems all over the world, holds over 140 U.S. and foreign patents in material processing technology.
SSI Shredding Systems, Inc. is a leading U.S. manufacturer of low-speed, high-torque shredding technology for waste-to-energy and alternative fuel applications. Since 1980, SSI has supplied hundreds of systems worldwide for generating energy from a broad range of waste streams – including municipal, industrial, hazardous waste, tires, mill waste, wood and other organics.
“There is a growing diversity of conversion technologies – mass burn, RDF, gasification, pyrolysis, anaerobic digestion, etc. – and plant sizes ranging from 1-2tph to over 100tph, so there’s no one size fits all system when it comes to shredding,” said SSI’s solid waste sales manager, Terri Ward.
With extensive in-house design, engineering and applications expertise, SSI is able to address each customer’s unique application with systems known for high-performance, low-maintenance, and on-line reliability. SSI offers one of the broadest product line-ups available. From the massive PRI-MAX® primary reducers, flexible Dual-Shear®, Tri-Shear™ and Quad® shear shredders, to the Uni-Shear® rotary grinders, they can provide a robust, stand-alone shredder or a combination of technologies within a larger processing line.
“Our PRI-MAX primary reduction shredders are designed to process high volumes of unsorted or bulky wastes into manageable sizes without over-shredding, keeping O&M costs low. This allows waste-to-energy facilities competing for waste volumes to diversify beyond MSW, bringing in oversized or industrial wastes that can’t otherwise be accepted into the main pit, as they would block the main feed system, result in incomplete combustion, or jam the downstream metal recovery system,” said Ward.
With an increasing interest in high-volume mixed waste processing facilities that include energy recovery, PRI-MAX is also an ideal first step to pre-condition and liberate material prior to separation and recovery of recyclables, organics or RDF feedstock in large-scale MRFs. PRI-MAX serves as a high capacity bag-breaker, but doesn’t require extensive pre-sorting. At the same time, it doesn’t damage high-value commodities the way more traditional shredders do. The PRI-MAX product line ranges from as little as 5 to 10 tons per hour to over 100 tons per hour.
SSI also offers a number of approaches for secondary shredding to reach spec sizes down to 1-2” minus, having used all of its 1, 2, 3 and 4-shaft shredders for engineered fuel projects, depending on the material and production rate required. However, “for producing alternative fuel in the U.S., I’m probably keenest on our Quad technology,” said Ward.
That’s because economic, political and regulatory conditions here differ greatly from Europe, where large-scale RDF plants are gaining acceptance. Most fuel processors here have to handle commercial and industrial waste streams, making specific blends of high Btu value materials cost-competitive.
“The Quad is by far the most capable, robust and flexible of fuel-production machines. Compared to alternative low-speed, high-torque technologies it operates at lower rpm, higher torque and lower inertia, allowing it to shred most metals or instantly stop and reverse itself on heavy, non-shreddable metals to prevent damaging cutters or the drive train. It also generates less friction, heat and dust, allowing it to process low melt plastics, adhesives and to operate without dust collection equipment, in most cases. It doesn’t require an extensive pre-processing line including pre-shredding, pre-sorting or air-density separation to protect it from damage.”
SSI has always been strong on drive technology, building both hydraulic and electric drive shredders and patenting their SSP – Severe Shock Protection™ torque coupling. We also developed the variable-speed electric SmartDrive® technology years before other manufacturers sought to acquire similar capabilities,” Ward stated.
As with all of their product lines, SSI uses the drive that suits the application. As a stand-alone, industrial waste-to-fuels shredder, they offer the proprietary, high-performance TopFuel™ drive that allows them to process whole bales, rolls, and slabs of material with maximum torque and fast overload reversing. As soon as the bale is broken up, the Quad can go to maximum rpm and focus on sizing, as torque is no longer needed.
SSI is able to utilize a single, stand-alone machine to produce up to 15 to 20tph of quality material for cement kilns or gasification. As a secondary shredder, production rates are even higher, as the shredder can be optimized to use more of the available horsepower for speed than torque. Smaller units are available as well.
While SSI inventories a number of its best-selling shredders, most customers prefer a purpose-built system, tailored to their operational needs. Depending on complexity, this can take anywhere from two to four months to manufacture, up to a week for transportation, and a week or two for installation.
Published in the October 2016 Edition of American Recycler News