A visit to a site using a shaft Furnace to create vermiculite, with the consequent waste of material and energy started a thought process. There had to be a more efficient way! And thus the TORBED processor was born. Designed to minimise resource use by intensifying the process and to maximise the amount of material successfully processed by creating a carefully controlled environment. The oldest currently operational TORBED reactor was installed for this purpose in 1989. It is still performing 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, producing vermiculite for the building industry. Since then our mineral journey has seen us providing equipment across the thermal range. Calcining clay at 1500ºC, using gas injected directly into the bed takes us close to the limit of what is possible. At the other end of the spectrum, the TORWAVE hybrid microwave processor enables us to dry fragile materials without overheating them: reducing the ambient process temperature, using our technological skills to create a process for a mineral that would be harmed by too much ambient heat. In between, we have amongst other things: dried and devolatilised coal, regenerating wastes and enhancing poor-quality feedstocks; calcined magnesite; calcined waste claying to create a low carbon cement; dried speciality clays; dried paint pigments; and created low carbon cement by drying and calcining paper sludge.
The TORBED reactor opens the door to controlled, high-intensity thermal mineral processing, creating high-quality, high-reactivity products. The TORWAVE processor pushes further, extending boundaries and offering possibilities including differential heating, volumetric heating and enhanced control.