Conveying of pet food kibbles

Processed powders: pea flour, soy flour, wheat flour, oat flour, bran flour, additives...

 Coating machine feeding
 

The client is a manufacturer of dog and cat food.

The purpose of the plant is to feed the coating machines at the outlet of extruders.

Our client is an existing customer of Palamatic Process for a prior project involving handling equipment for the production of cereal/protein mixes as well as the feeding of the extruder. This time they were looking for a solution for a vertical and horizontal handling of the "freshly" cooled pellets to feed the coaters. The powders used by our customer to prepare these premixes are: pea flour, soy flour, wheat flour, oat flour, bran flour, additives.

Its premix line integrates dosing equipment (screw dosers and vibrating dosers), pneumatic transfer systems, weigh hoppers and twin-shaft base mixers with a capacity of 1000 and 2500 liters.

In this new line modification, the pet food pellets at the outlet of the extruder must be handled with care in order not to generate any product breakage. The customer's specifications require preservation of the freshly extruded product as well as the possibility to clean the equipment for batch and recipe changes.

Taking into account these functional constraints and the space available for the implementation of the solution, the Palamatic Process commercial team selected the pendulum bucket elevator solution. This tilting bucket elevator technology offers a vertical transfer without any attrition in the pet food pellets while maintaining a high flow rate and continuous feed. The overlapping of the buckets in relation to each other provides a clean casing with minimum retention and continuous loading directly at the extruder outlet.
Bucket tilting is controlled by a pneumatic cylinder operating a cam, thus ensuring unloading onto the desired coating machine. Contrary to conventional bucket elevators, the buckets are emptied by tilting and not by throwing the product contained in the buckets.
Unloading by casting is extremely disadvantageous for the integrity of the pellet. Another advantage of the tilting bucket elevator is its z-transfer design which allows easy installation in the existing line with a passage through the process equipment already in place.

Kibbles with a high temperature at the extruder outlet can cause a residue on the handling buckets. Due to its hygienic design, the entire bucket can be completely and easily dismantled for thorough cleaning. 

The installation of tilting bucket elevators for handling kibbles for animal feed is a convenient and reliable solution, and can be used as a complement or replacement for pneumatic conveying solutions.

Our team of project engineers from the pet food world are at your disposal to study your animal kibble extrusion lines, manufacture of premixes, weighing buckets, storage, packaging under protective atmosphere, etc.