Van Beek has engineered and produced two steel tubular conveyors for RWB Water Services from Almelo as a solution for the fast and simple transport of pellets. These pellets are produced as a waste product when softening water.

RWB Water Services works both in the field of drinking and process water production and in the field of waste water treatment and recycling. The company supplies "custom work in water". This may be customer-specific systems, but also standard installations with the corresponding service.

The Van Beek screw conveyors were taken into service by Vitens in Wierden, the biggest drinking water company in the Netherlands. They provide water softening so that soft water comes out of the consumer's tap.

Water is softened using a softening reactor. This reactor is supplied with sand grains and sodium hydroxide solution. The sodium hydroxide solution causes the lime from the water to adhere to the sand grain. Because lime adheres to the sand grain it grows to a size of some 1.5 to 3 mm, creating a pellet. All the pellets from the process go into a bunker. The job of the Van Beek screw conveyors is to discharge these pellets to the trucks, with a capacity of 60 cu m/hr. Both screw conveyors are fitted with a DN50 drain with shut-off valve. This is to allow the systems to drain and to discharge the residual product.

“This softening process was devised by Vitens,” says Henk Broekhuis, project manager at RWB Water Services. “The complete installation in Wierden was already around 12 years old and had in part been dismantled. RWB Water Services extended the installation with three reactors. For discharging the pellets we had requested a price from various screw constructors. Our contact with Van Beek was very pleasant and went well."

For more information, visit www.van-beek.nl.