Wood Pellet Screening System

The Task

One of the UK’s largest manufacturers and distributor of pet supplies contacted Gough Engineering looking for a product screening solution.

The company primarily manufacture a range of cat litter and animal bedding materials, and had concerns about an unacceptable amount of dust and fine particles being bagged up with their product. They required an efficient and reliable means of separating out good wood pellets from the dust at a fast enough rate to meet their production requirements, before the product was bagged up and made ready for sale.

The Solution

After a visit from a Gough Applications Engineer and discussions with the customer about what they wanted the new screening system to achieve, we developed and manufactured a single deck vibrating Linear Screen to gently shake the dust loose from the wood pellets before discharging through separate outlets. The Linear Screen included a 1,100 mm wide by 2,500 mm long screening area to sieve the wood pellets from the dust at a rate of 5 tonnes per hour. The unit was designed as a low-level unit to allow it to fit beneath the customer’s pre-existing product holding bin, with an enclosing top cover to prevent any dust escaping into the surrounding production facility. Once screened, good wood pellets discharged into a material collection pump prior to being conveyed to the company’s bagging systems, whilst all dust and fine particles are discharged into a separate collection bin.

The Result

The company has been very pleased with the results and overall performance of the Gough Vibratory Linear Screen, and were impressed and pleasantly surprised by the low-noise level of the unit during its operation. After successful sales of their newly screened products, the company is currently considering the purchase of a second Linear Screen to expand their production.