Almeida orders new dry milling line from Manfredini & Schianchi

Almeida Group, a leading Brazilian manufacturer with business activities dating back to 1938, recently commissioned a new MS-Drytech raw materials preparation line from Manfredini & Schianchi for the production of digitally-decorated large-format single-fired floor and wall tiles.

The new plant offers some major new features. For the first time in Brazil it introduces the concept of open-cycle milling complete with airflow drying to handle raw materials with a moisture content of up to 16%.

This makes it possible to obtain a perfectly uniform ceramic mixture with constant moisture content and a very fine particle size, suitable for the production of materials with high-gloss surfaces.

Moreover, the consumption of natural gas in the milling process will be close to zero following the forthcoming installation of a system for recovering hot air originating from kiln cooling.

The finishing mills used in the plant consist of the new high-performance Molomax 6/190 Mega mills (throughput up to 50 m³/hour). The zero maintenance transmission components were specially designed by Manfredini & Schianchi in cooperation with the Swedish multinational SKF.

Another first for the Brazilian ceramic sector is the adoption of granulation, in this case using patented Madirex granulators, the industry leader since 2012. This process produces an agglomerate with moisture, density, flow index and mould filling characteristics similar to those of the best spray-dried products.