Pilot Plant Services

We feel that this service is one of the most important of the services that we offer you, our customer. Here, you and DDR can learn about your already developed product or a dried food processing product that is being brought to life. With the information gathered, we can provide you with the right drum dryer set-up, specifically for your product.

DDR offers a fully operational pilot plant that can be used for initial testing for small production runs to test your new products.

The pilot plant consists of the follow equipment:

• 8" x 10" double drum dryer
• 24" x 36" single drum dryer with 3 applicator rolls
• 24" x 24" double drum dryer
• 60 gallon steam jacketed stainless steel tank
• Slurry pump
• Weight scale Product flaker - This flaker can be used on both of the larger dryers, connected to the air conveying system.
• Product air conveying system with bag house and rotary valve - This system can be attached to either of the larger dryers.
• Separate filling room where the air conveying system comes to. This room has a dehumidifier and air conditioner, for a more controlled environment
• Misc. laboratory equipment.

The idea of the DDR pilot plant is to:

1. Improve the characteristics of an existing product or develop a new product for drum drying.

2. Be able to do testing that will allow you and us to watch the product go through an entire system.

3. See it made into slurry, and then pumped over to the dryer.

4. Observe what the product does in the puddle or determine what level of slurry is required in the puddle.

5. Observe how the product comes off the drum and the knife blade.

6. Observe what the product does in the screw conveyors through a flaker.

7. Determine if the product can be air conveyed.

8. Observe what the reaction is in the bag house before it comes out the rotary valve to a package.

9. Perform additional product observation. Of course, from there it could require additional sizing to become the final product you are looking for.

With this valuable information, DDR can then design and build the right dryer with the right systems for your product or products. The pilot plant also allows DDR to develop and test new drum dryer concepts that will benefit you, the customer.

Contact us for more information regarding the pilot plant.