Sustainability, efficiency and safety: optimalisation in industrial mineral transport of CEBO

Cebo is an international supplier of the industrial minerals bentonite and barite. They import these minerals from mines around the world. And once the minerals arrive at Cebo’s premises in IJmuiden, the materials undergo several internal transport movements. To reduce the use of dump trucks and loaders, Cebo wanted an entirely new transport system. Mainly to improve sustainability, cost efficiency and safety.   

The raw bentonite minerals were previously transported by loaders from the storage location to the powder mills. The loader dumped the raw material into a feed bunker. From there, the minerals were transported on a plate conveyor to a clump crusher. Finally, the bentonite was conveyed via an elevator to a conveyor belt, which transported the material to an intermediate bunker. You are probably thinking: “That’s a very long journey, with several stops on the way. Surely, there’s a more efficient solution?” Yes, definitely!

The new conveying system eliminates the entire feeding process in the old set-up. In fact, the minerals are deposited directly onto the conveyor belts. The feed bunker has also been completely replaced.

The goal of this project was to automate the supply of bentonite to Cebo’s powder mills. As a result, the loaders and dump trucks are used less, which significantly reduces wear and tear. So did we succeed? We certainly did! The new variable speed conveyor system is capable of feeding 18 to 50 megatons per hour.

What we did for this customer:

• Integration of a new Mitsubishi PLC and Citect SCADA license;
• Creation of a new PLC program for the modified conveyor system;
• Built-in variable speed drive that can adjust the amount of product fed to the mills;
• PLC control with various automatic controls for the different parts of the installation;
• Automatic detector that senses the level in the intermediate bunker and adjusts the feed conveyor accordingly;
• Installation of a new industrial PC in the new control cabinet (carried out by our partner Jac. de Vries Elektrotechniek) and
• Installation and configuration of software on the industrial PC and in the control cabinet.

“We are delighted with the automated bentonite supply to our powder mills. A lot of thought went into deciding how to achieve the goal, resulting in the delivery of an outstanding system! The collaboration with DWG was very enjoyable and I can definitely recommend DWG.”

Yannick Mossel, Technical Department Electrical Supervisor, Cebo

Projects of this type require all of the disciplines at DWG to work together effectively and smoothly. A clear structure is indispensable for this. This is why we use the V model, which consists of a number of steps. The model starts with identifying the customer’s specifications and requirements. The final steps are the Factory Acceptance Test (FAT) and commissioning. After each step, we check whether the outcome matches the wishes and expectations of the customer: in this case, CEBO.