Chopping with the right shredder or screen
With the latest generation of nibblers, the Gericke GNB, a new release of screens has also been added to the portfolio.
Gericke has many years of experience with a wide variety of milling machines and granulators which are sold under the name “nibbler”. Based on this knowledge, Gericke’s experts are able to select shredders or screens according to the customer’s requirements. With the latest generation of nibblers, the Gericke GNB, a new release of screens has also been added to the portfolio.
A Gericke nibbler crushes lumps, agglomerates, filter cakes, rework or frozen raw materials into processable grain sizes.
The selection of the screen plays a role in efficiency. When crushing brittle products with the aim of keeping the fines content low, different refining inserts are used than for tough, greasy or moist products, which could tend to clog the screen.
An output product from a belt dryer, for example, is often brittle and fragile, but also hygroscopic. Many customers aim to minimise the number of fines when shredding the product to achieve a high yield. The screen type and opening size must therefore be able to cut the product and process it quickly.
An example of a tough, fatty product would be cocoa in various forms. Due to the product properties of the cocoa, very high tensile forces occur on the grater. The grater must be able to absorb the high stresses that occur.
In deagglomeration applications, the refiner size often does not directly correspond to the target particle size required by the customer. The process in the nibbler breaks down the agglomerate and allows it to be fed to the subsequent process step in the desired target size. A larger nibbler size can increase throughput and minimise product stress without reducing output quality. Trials can be carried out to determine the optimum grater size and grater type, either with a loan unit or in the test centres worldwide.
