inprotec AG Expands its Plant in Genthin
With the new drying plant, capacities at the Genthin production site in Saxony-Anhalt will increase by around 40 percent.
For more than 20 years, inprotec AG has been regarded as an ideal partner by well-known global corporations from various industries - and by smaller clients as well. The company from Heitersheim in Baden-Württemberg is a contract manufacturer specialising in the drying and shaping of granulates and powders; it works for manufacturers of detergents and cleaning agents, animal feed and plastic additives, building materials and fine chemicals. With its reliability and individual service, the medium-sized company has established itself as the market leader in contract drying throughout Europe.
Since 2019, inprotec has been resolutely gearing up for the future with a new management team and a strong investor. In the next few months, the company will take another big step and expand its total capacity by around 40 per cent. For this purpose, an additional fluidised bed system will be installed at the plant in Saxony-Anhalt; in future, around 40,000 tonnes of material will be dried in this system per year. inprotec is investing around 16 million euros in this, and the new plant is expected to go into operation in the second quarter of 2022.
This is good news not only for clients from the chemical industry. Skilled workers will find new tasks with an attractive employer at the plant in Saxony-Anhalt.
The new fluidised bed launder will initially produce detergents and cleaning agents. Spray granulation, which is used for this, offers great advantages: Starting materials, drying and process can be configured so that the particles form special shapes and properties: Onion skin or blackberry structures, for example. This produces dust-free granulates that are easy to dose, easy to dissolve in water, but also easy to tablet. It is also planned to produce other large-volume products in the plant in the medium term.
With the new fluidised bed trough, the Genthin site remains specialised in production. In addition to production facilities, the headquarters in Heitersheim also includes a laboratory facility for feasibility tests and a pilot plant for scale-up trials and small-scale production. Thus, as a contract service provider, inprotec is able to develop innovative solutions in close exchange with its customers and to meet very specific product requirements. In addition to spray granulation, the company also offers technologies such as spray agglomeration, matrix encapsulation, coating, fluidised bed drying and spray drying.
inprotec currently achieves annual sales of 50 million euros. 120 people are employed in Heitersheim, 140 in Genthin. Among them there are numerous apprentices - 8.2 per cent of the employees - and they have good prospects of being taken on. ”We are an attractive employer, and with the changes we are planning, we offer good career opportunities, especially for young skilled workers,” says inprotec boss Steve Döring.
