Aquafeed, Germany

Highest purity of fishmeal for fish feed production

Aquafeed

Customer: J. Müller, Germany
Application: Cleaning and grinding of fish meal for fish food production
Solution: Use of a VDK4 hammer mill with an upstream cleaning system consisting of a trommel screen and air classifier to achieve a purity level of around 95%, with a particular focus on dust explosion protection in accordance with ATEX guidelines.
Result: high-purity fish meal with a purity level of around 95%.

Highest purity of fish meal for fish feed production

Due to its high protein content, fishmeal is used as a feed in fish feed and pet food production. The goal in fish meal cleaning and grinding is therefore to achieve an absolutely clean end product without disposing of the high-quality base product. In order to clean fish meal from sometimes occurring impurities, such as foil residues, metals and larger bone residues, J. Müller has been relying on a VDK4 hammer mill from Tietjen for years.

J. MÜLLER – invested in a fishmeal cleaning and grinding plant

The seaport of Bremen is a recognized EU import port for maritime proteins. The terminal specializes in handling fish and krill meal and is the largest of its kind in Europe.

To ensure optimal fishmeal processing at the Bremen seaport, J. Müller Aktiengesellschaft approached Tietjen in June 2014 to provide a fishmeal cleaning and grinding plant for the Bremen port terminal.

Finest fish meal grinding with the VDK 4

Fishmeal from overseas has to be cleaned and re-milled before being added to feed due to contamination and clumping. Due to its special design, the Tietjen hammer mill VDK 4 is particularly suitable for grinding the fish meal. This was integrated into a complete cleaning and grinding plant for J. Müller. It extends over a total of two floors.

Dieses Bild hat ein leeres Alt-Attribut. Der Dateiname ist VDK-1000x665px-jbu-1.jpg
The VDK is a high-speed mill for medium throughput rates

Drum screen and air classifier – for a particularly high degree of purity of fish meal

The special feature of this plant is the degree of purity of around 95% achieved. This is achieved by cleaning the fish meal via a drum screen and an air classifier. The drum screen used is particularly well suited for the continuous separation of foreign particles. The downstream air classifier separates the fish meal by means of an ascending air stream, which entrains the light foils and BigBag fibers as suspended particles. Fish meal sinks as “good product” and is fed to the hammer mill together with the “good product” of the trommel screen.

Fish meal has an explosive characteristic, which is why attention must also be paid to dust explosion protection. Tietjen solutions strictly follow the ATEX guidelines for dust explosion protection. The machines are explosion pressure shock resistant and flameproof up to an explosion overpressure of at least 0.4 bar. The machines, as well as the safety technology used, meet all the necessary national and international specifications. Thus, the explosion protection is complied with and the exhaust emission values are not exceeded. Our aim with this plant was also to implement an economical and at the same time very safe plant, which was specially tailored to the requirements of J. Müller.

Since its start-up in 2015, the plant has delivered a throughput of 5 t/h and continuously ensures pure fish meal for the end customers.

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