Granule conveyor cell size study

Abstract

One of the most affordable ways to create slow-acting forms of fertilizer is to produce complex granular fertilizers using an organic sapropel matrix. A device for granulating organic-mineral fertilizers, the basis of which is a granulating mesh conveyor, is able to work with sapropel of natural humidity and to provide maximum yield of a commodity fraction of
final humidity. The purpose of this study is to determine the patterns for calculating the cell size of the granulating conveyor, taking into account the shrinkage of the granules during the drying process. As a result of the study, a formula was obtained for calculating the cell size of the granulating conveyor, which will provide the required final granule size. For practical use of the obtained formula, the coefficient of volumetric shrinkage of organic-mineral mixtures based on sapropel was determined experimentally. It was also found that for all the studied types of organic-mineral fertilizers, it is possible to choose the ratio between the organic and mineral parts in which the initial cell size of the granulating conveyor will be 8 ... 10 mm, and the final diameter of the granules will not exceed 6 mm.