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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.

 

 

more...

The firing process combines the fine particles of raw materials irreversibly into a solid body by means of silicatisation and gives the finished product its water insolubility, a certain resistance against chemical influences, the necessary compressive strength of the individual formats, and the colour. Because the tunnel kilns are continually operated 7 days a week and 24 hours a day, but shaping and unloading are only carried out in one shift 5 days a week, a corresponding number of kiln cars are put in temporary storage before and after the firing process. This temporary storage and the whole firing process are computer-controlled. The kilns are fired at the sides as well as from above by natural gas burners. In this process, the combustion air is partly introduced via a regulated pressurised air system, warming up here according to the counterflow principle while the fired items cool down, and goes into the fire zone as an oxygen carrier. The combustion gases occurring here are sucked through the heating zone with additional assistance from the similarly regulated flue gas system, causing the product to be heated up. As the tunnel kiln cars are fed forward at performance-appropriate time intervals, the green bodies are continually heated and fired into facing bricks while passing through the fire zone at approx. 1.100 °C. The whole firing process takes approx. 2-3 days. The flue gas, drawn off via smoke extractor ducts, goes straight into the flue gas cleaning system, before it is discharged into the chimney at temperatures only just above the dew point. Experience shows that the most favourable thermal efficiency is achieved with these tunnel kilns, because no firing aids that would also require heating up (fire-proof mats or boxes) are necessary for the heavy clay product.

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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.