Ceramics
Ceramics

Size matters. Hayal installs SACMI mills and spray dryers, the most powerful and productive on the market

With a decisive increase in productivity planned for 2023, the ‘plus-sizing’ of machines will provide valuable energy savings, with all of SACMI’s hallmark reliability, quality and control

The Hayal Group, a Turkey-based company that specializes in construction materials, primarily ceramics, has purchased the largest, most powerful ceramic mills and spray dryers the market has ever seen.

Following the qualitative leap achieved in 2016 with the installation of the first SACMI mills and spray dryers, the Group now looks to the future. For its Qua Granite plant in Söke (Kuşadasi district), they’ve decided on the new MMC240 and ATE350 units, the largest in the world, to give them the firepower they’ll need to cope with growing markets and volumes.
 

But why go for ‘plus-size’ machines?The main reason concerns the drastic increase in productivity Hayal expects for 2023, which should take the overall figure to 50 million square meters. Another driving force is product standardization which, combined with the former aspect, allows for a production process that’s optimized from an economic/organizational perspective.

Above all, the average size of body preparation machines has been growing for the last 15 years, a trend that SACMI has successfully intercepted by making the most of its technological design skills for such solutions. The result: the world's largest installed machine pool, with almost 1,000 continuous mill modules (MMC) and 1,600 spray dryers (ATM, ATE and ATI).

The first ATE350 - fed by two MMC240 modular mills - is already running at capacity, with output rates reaching 90 tons per hour. The second part of the line will be ‘activated’ in early 2023.

This will see the addition of two more MMC240s and an ATE350. Since the first ATE350 has already proved to be so effective, further orders for this type have already been signed, with delivery to the Group’s other production plants expected in 2023.

In some countries the trend is towards small batches, frequent product changeovers and, therefore, frequent raw material changeovers. However, if we bear in mind that the SACMI range targets a global market, then the demand for ever-higher performance body preparation machines becomes evident. There are several reasons. At production level it’s increasingly commonplace and advantageous, for ceramic products that do not require specific ‘through-the-body’ effects, to produce large volumes of ‘basic’ bodies that are then reprocessed, textured and digitally decorated.
 

Further reasons concern the way the machines are designed to match the characteristics of the grinding and spray drying processes. In the case of the MMC240s, these are the first solutions on the market SACMI has configured, as per the customer's request, with 4 modules. Further solutions with up to 5 modules are being supplied in other parts of the world.

Originally developed by SACMI in 2005, the modular mill is still the most flexible, most efficient way of controlling the various stages of grinding, from crushing to refinement. A fourth - or even a fifth - module introduces an additional control parameter, further optimizing the process in line with the characteristics of the product, thus saving energy.

Spray dryers are a different matter. On the SACMI ATE range, cost-effective design, operation and maintenance are, on higher-volume models, combined with a more than proportional increase in efficiency. With the ATE350, that increase can (compared to the installation of two ATE180s offering the same output) be as high as 1.5%. This reduces annual gas consumption by 250,000 standard cubic meters, which means a faster return on investment. Further advantages include a smaller footprint; output remaining equal, doubling the size can shrink the footprint by up to 20% and result in simplified plant engineering (fewer batching stations, conveyor belts, etc.). These machines are designed and sized to work 24/7 and provide all the quality, control and reliability one expects from SACMI.

And for Hayal, investment in SACMI technology doesn’t end here.
In addition to the 2023 projects for the Group’s other production facilities, again with machines of greater size and power, the Söke plant will soon be supplied with ten new PH 5200 presses, the market benchmark for medium-large items such as 600x600 and 600x1200 mm.

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