As featured in Aggregates Business Europe.
Speaking to Aggregates Business, CDE’s Thomas Patterson, senior technical engineer, and Mark Ballantine, senior product development engineer, highlighted that the company has seen a big increase in demand for plant set-ups focused on C&D (construction & demolition) waste recycling applications.
“We had a more simplistic approach to the recycling market four to five years ago as the needs of the market were very different,” explains Patterson. “Then, our customer was just looking to divert products from landfill, make them saleable, get them out of the door and get a quick return on investment on it.
“Now, it’s gone from one sand and one aggregate to two in-spec sands and four aggregates, which are CE certified. That is a drastic change in the range and quality of the final product, which is supported by the level of investment that a customer wishes to make in the complexity and capability of their recycling plant.”
The screening element of the plant set-up for recycling and other customers in the quarrying, mining and construction industries includes screen media based on a longstanding partnership between CDE and screen media specialist, TEMA Isenmann, the UK-based subsidiary of German company Isenmann Siebe, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of screen media and ancillary products.
“We have a very close relationship with TEMA Isenmann,” says Ballantine. “If there are any problems that arise in the field or anything in our screen media that we think we can improve, be it cut-point efficiency, throughput capacity, or dewatering capacity, we know we can find the right mat for the optimised solution. It’s a continuous feedback loop involving our sales and technical engineer teams and the customer.
“With recycling projects, you may at one stage have loads of fine materials that need to be screened and dewatered, which will affect your dewatering capacity or fines management. Then next week, you want to get rid of larger sized particles.”
CDE has a range of 15 Infinity-branded screens for dewatering and product-sizing classification. “There’s a lot of novel features across that range, like Trilogy side walls and bolted construction, and we’re working on two more screens to add to it,” explains Ballantine. “There is modularity in the Infinity screens design and adaptability, allowing them to accommodate different screen media. The wide breadth of our screens means you need a wide arsenal of screen media to go with them, which we can get through our partnership with TEMA Isenmann.”
Patterson notes that CDE uses its Infinity range of screens on its plants for customers across both material handling divisions, natural processing and waste recycling. “CDE incorporates three main principles of good screening media, that is, plant performance, maximising tonnes per hour; durability, so you have good plant protection and minimum downtime; and ability to achieve tight product specifications.
Thomas Patterson, Senior Technical Engineer, CDE
“In each material processing solution from CDE, the screening media is tailored to every application. For example working with a crushed manufactured sand is different to working with an alluvial natural occurring sand where the shape and texture of the two particles appear different, and aperture size and shape are very important to retain maximum screen efficiency."
“With a crushed rock application, given crushed rock is very sharp and angular, a slotted mat may be more suitable to gain more screening efficiency. Whereas a naturally occurring product [glass sand] that is rounder and alluvial is going to be more easily screened with a square aperture. Top-cut-point protection and low-cutpoint protection is also much more easily achieved.”
Patterson says around 55% of CDE plant orders in 2020 were repeat customers. “I think the growing relationship we have with these repeat customers helps make each project a success, and that includes the screen media that we supply to them.”
Ballantine highlights how CDE has invested heavily in improving its testing capabilities, especially when dealing with specialist sand applications. “For those kinds of customers, we get a large volume of samples and test them on our screens in our dedicated test rig. You have all the theory and the calculations but being able to thoroughly test out a tailored plant set-up gives us peace of mind that the set-up will be fit for the task in the field. We want to be clear with our performance commitments to every project, and we want to be accountable for the solutions we provide, so it’s important that we get technical certainty around what we’re supplying.”
As well as being the year when CDE opened its new eye-catching, state-of-the art global HQ in Cookstown, 2019 also saw the company move into its first in-house manufacturing facility in Monkstown, County Antrim. “Prior to that, all our manufacturing was sub-contracted out. Moving forward, we envisage a shared approach between in-house and partner suppliers,” says Ballantine. “That brings greater flexibility in how we work while also speeding up product development and ensuring better quality control. It’s been a very positive development.”
Patterson adds: “The big thing for me is the collaboration that the new HQ and manufacturing facility has given us. The new HQ building also gives us a great opportunity to invite our customers in and complete a technical design workshop where we can transform our customer’s vision or idea into a world-class solution that can be visualised on the same day."