In these days of large increases in the price of industrial gas and other fuels, any technology, which genuinely offers worthwhile savings in energy consumption, is of interest. The Netherlands manufacturer of continuous fluid-bed dryers, Ventilex, claims that its designs do just that. Quarry Management reported in its July 2005 review of the ￡4.5 million investment carried out by WBB Minerals at Warmsworth near Doncaster that fuel savings of about 30% were achieved by the newly installed Ventilex dryer/cooler as compared with the rotary drum dryer, which it replaced. In this case the new dryer is handling 110 tonnes an hour of 2mm and 3mm dolomite sand containing 11% moisture and discharging it with a moisture content below 3% and at a temperature less than 35℃. These figures, which were obtained from a three-month study carried out after the successful commissioning of the new plant early in 2005, are claimed to be representative of the results obtained generally by Ventilex in the drying of aggregates and similar materials.
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