Mpact Uses Voith HiCon 2.0 to Increase Capacity, Cut Energy Requirements

With Voith’s (Germany) HiCon 2.0 technology for InfiltraDiscfilters, customers gain an important variable, allowing them to pave the way to meeting these criteria as early as the stock preparation stage.

The premiere of HiCon 2.0 technology at the South African corrugated board producer Mpact has shown that the potential of HiCon 2.0 is not just possible in the technology center but can also be achieved in practice. The new system incorporates InfiltraDiscfilters with HiCon 2.0 technology. 

Maggy Odayar, technical manager at Mpact, describes the results. "The disc filters have proven to be reliable, efficient, and highly flexible in respect of inlet stock consistency and stock flow. Throughput is 15% higher than the planned rate." Long-term tests show that consistencies of 2% can be sustained. The filters installed at Mpact can also readily handle consistency peaks of 2.5%.

Upgrade of the components was an important element for increasing productivity of the entire system.

 

As part of the conversion of the company's paper mill in Felixton to make production ''greener,' recovered paper fibers have been used instead of the sugar cane waste product bagasse since 2015. A machine rebuild was designed to increase the machine speed from 700 to 930 m/min., to achieve the goal of a 40% increase in production. 

For this project Voith executed an upgrade of the complete stock preparation unit. Since the completion of the rebuild in 2016, a vertical LC pulper with a capacity of 800 metric tpd has been added to the existing drum pulper.

The Voith BlueLine stock preparation at the Schoellershammer PM 6 in Düren ensures high energy efficiency and sparing of resources.

The new technology from Voith's BlueLine range is the latest development of the disc filters, which began in 2012 with the launch of the BaglessPlus system and was followed by the HiCon technology in 2014. This new system not only allows the consistency of the stock flow in the inlet to be increased, but also raises throughput by up to 20%. Filters equipped with HiCon have already demonstrated in a large number of applications in both new builds and upgrades that they are robust enough to readily handle high and strongly fluctuating stock consistencies in the inlet. 

The HiCon 2.0 technology builds on these proven concepts, but has added two core innovations. First, a sturdy system ensures that discs stay on track, which prevents damage of the segments. And second, each disc is fed separately, and the flow pattern in the vat can be reversed. This prevents thickening of the pulp. In conventional disc filters, higher inlet stock consistencies inevitably result in a high degree of thickening in the filter vat. This is why most paper manufacturers dilute the stock flow upstream of the disc filters. This means higher water input and a higher demand of pumping energy.