Raw materials

Lava, sand and sawdust are used in addition
to the main raw material, clay.
These raw materials come from Germany, Holland and Belgium.
Preparation
First of all, a rolling mill is used.
The clay is reduced by pressure
between the opposing rollers.
After the rolled raw material
has been temporarily stored once
again in different box feeders and
drawn off in controlled amounts,
it goes into the circular screen feeder.
The clay is drawn in by spreading arms
and spread past the screen. As a result,
intense homogenisation is achieved,
right down to the smallest ranges of the mass particles.
The clay then goes into a single-shaft mixer.
The single-shaft mixer is designed for the
automatically controlled mixing in of water.
Single-duct, counterflow drum dryers with
drum screen are used to prepare the
mould sand required at the presses.

Shaping
At the Emmerich plant,
three different press
techniques are used,
all of which are based
on the old,
hand-moulded bricks.
That is why the description
“hand-moulded from the Lower Rhine”
has caught on and lasted
right up to the present.

Firing process
The firing process as a final
ceramic technological procedure.
Unloading
The fired facings are fully automatically taken off two kiln cars at the same time in a stepped pattern for better pre-mixing and then run through a separation station. After this, each stone passes a sorting station. Only afterwards are the layers automatically distributed on 8 chain conveyors by a sophisticated intermediate storage system and reshaped by the individual picking out of 3 to 4 bricks. The newly formed lines are then split up onto two parallel-running belts and it is only from here that they are moved in layers onto transport pallets. This means that a very good cross-mixing is achieved across the whole kiln car, so that bricks that have been fired next to each other and look unintentionally similar in colour no longer lie next to each other in the layer and also cannot appear as “nests” of colour when they are used.
The transport radius of our products does not permit us to transport loose packages. That is why a sheet of paper is automatically placed between each layer to protect the surfaces of the bricks. The packages are finally shrink-wrapped into automatically formed film covers. A lift truck then brings the ready-to-dispatch packages to the storage yard, from which the pallets are then loaded onto HGVs. The surfaces of the kiln cars are vacuumed off after each run. This prepares the kiln car for a new cycle.