Custom grinding and industrial micronisation

Contract grinding and particle size classification service

Building on its long-standing expertise in powder engineering, the POITTEMILL – FORPLEX Group is launching its contract grinding and micronisation service. We make our pilot plants and industrial equipment available to manufacturers for contract manufacturing, the custom processing of batches of raw materials and the delivery of bespoke micronisation programmes (food and drink, chemicals, minerals, pharmaceuticals)

Are you looking for an industrial partner capable of processing your raw materials, achieving a precise particle size or developing a grinding process tailored to your requirements and specifications?

At POITTEMILL – FORPLEX, we put our expertise at the service of your projects through our contract grinding, contract particle size classification and grinding with drying services.

From a few kilograms to several tonnes, we analyse your needs to offer you a solution tailored to your material, the required particle size and your industrial constraints.

Submit my project

Industrial production subcontracting

Each material has its own characteristics: hardness, abrasiveness, moisture content, thermal sensitivity, mechanical behaviour and tendency to agglomerate. These parameters directly influence the choice of process and the performance of the treatment.

Our expertise in grinding and classification technologies enables us to explore different configurations to meet the requirements of your application.

  • Industrial grinding
  • Grinding and classification
  • Grinding and drying
  • Laboratory grinding (a few kilograms)
  • Particle size classification
  • Crumbling and sieving

Our range of equipment for contract grinding

Vertical Mill - PM

The POITTEMILL pendulum mill is a vertical mill that utilises compressive forces on a bed of material. The vertical shaft drives a moving assembly consisting of several pendulums mounted on ball joints. Each pendulum carries a free roller rotating about its axis. The rotation of the moving assembly and the articulation of the pendulum generate a centrifugal force at the roller. The product is ground by being crushed between the roller and a fixed raceway.

Advantages:

  • Short residence time between the
  • Ideal for high-capacity grinding components
  • Minimises over-grinding
  • Direct drying up to 20 per cent moisture content
  • Low energy consumption
  • Robust
  • Easy adjustments and settings

Attrition grinding (self-grinding of particles against one another through friction, impact and shearing). The product is ground between several rotating elements and a stator fitted with a liner.

The combination of three physical principles for efficient ultra-fine grinding:

  • SELF-GRINDING of particles within upward-moving vortices generated by a strong air current, the flow of which is disrupted by a rotor assembly with radial blades rotating at high speed.
  • BREAKING UP of particles caused by pressure changes generated by variations in the cross-sectional area of the air/material flow and by impact against the blades and the stator
  • SHEARING of particles between the tips of the blades and the stator’s grooves.

Wide range of applications:

PLASTICS: virgin PVC, rigid PVC, bottles, PET, HDPE, LDPE, etc.
FOOD INDUSTRY: cereals, flours, soya, casein, caseinate, slaughterhouse waste, guar, seaweed, etc.
ELASTOMERS: NBR, SBS, SBR, EPDM, tyres, etc.
CHEMICALS: pigments, cosmetics, resins, pharmaceuticals, etc.
MINERALS: calcium carbonate, graphite, clays, bentonite, etc.

The FK Hammer-Blade Crusher is the result of a combination of an MA Hammer Crusher and a FORPLEX FNG Universal Crusher. It can be fitted with various crushing tools (hammer disc, blade disc) which can be adjusted according to the product to be crushed or the desired result.

Delivering unrivalled results for technical applications such as the grinding of natural ingredients (a knife rotor designed for grinding plant material), the FK grinder has been designed to meet the standards of the food and drink, fine chemicals, pharmaceutical, nuclear and cosmetics industries. It complies with FDA, GMP and ANIA standards and criteria.

Principle of operation:

The product is fed from the top into the grinding chamber, located at the centre of the grinder. Grinding is achieved through the impact and projection of the raw product between the moving parts of the high-speed rotating rotor. The particle size of the resulting product can be adjusted using a range of screens and sieving rings (between 0.2 mm and 20 mm). The fineness setting also depends on other factors: grinding equipment, grinding tools, feed rate, air flow rate, rotational speed, etc. Changing any one of these parameters will alter the particle size distribution curve of the finished product.

Once the product has been ground according to the specified criteria and settings, it falls by gravity and is conveyed to the next stage of the grinding process, either by gravity feed or by mechanical conveyance.

Grinding by impact and attrition in a grinding chamber fitted with a rotor equipped with grinding tools and a stator with a liner. Fitted with a static separator and a dynamic classifier to ensure precise particle size separation.

The P.A.S. air mill-classifier can process a wide variety of products to a fineness of 99 per cent at 10 µm. The P.A.S. is fitted with a grinding plate and an integrated dynamic classifier, driven independently by motors controlled by variable-frequency drives. The P.A.S. is available in several versions, offering great flexibility in installation and use. The wide choice of grinding tools (disc, liner) combined with a static classifier and a variable-speed dynamic classifier ensures the production of very fine, perfectly graded products, whatever the application. The P.A.S can be optionally equipped, as appropriate, with our latest patented technological advances: the latest-generation SEALMAX© classifier and the OPTICYCLE© internal ultra-fine recycling system.

The P.A.S. grinder-classifier enables the following to be integrated into a single stage:

  • Impact and attrition grinding
  • Simultaneous drying
  • Dual classification (static + dynamic)
  • Independent adjustments

Result: continuous production of fine, stable material, with a controlled cut-off down to 7 µm (d99) and industrial-scale capacities depending on the application.

Principle of operation

The material is fed into the centre of the crusher.

Crushing is achieved by impact and projection between the moving parts of the high-speed rotating rotor and the stationary parts.

The fineness of the product to be ground is determined by:

  • The grinding equipment
  • The perforation and type of screen ring
  • The feed rate
  • The air flow rate
  • The rotational speed (max. 150 m/s)

Changing any one of these parameters will alter the particle size distribution of the finished product.

Principle of operation

The product is fed into the centre of the crusher.

Crushing is achieved by impact and projection between the moving parts of the high-speed rotating rotor and the stationary parts.

The fineness of the product to be crushed is determined by:

The grinding equipment
The perforation and type of screen ring
The feed rate
The air flow rate
The rotational speed (max. 150 m/s)

Changing any one of these parameters will alter the particle size distribution of the finished product.

Hammer plates

  • Fine, medium-fine, coarse and preliminary grinding.
  • Friable to medium-hard, crystalline, brittle, oily and fibrous materials.
  • Without a screening ring, the mill is used as a primary mill (granulator/crusher)
  • The particle size distribution of the product is controlled by the rotor speed, the perforations and the design of the screening ring.

Principle of operation

The product is fed into the centre of the mill.

Grinding is achieved by impact and projection between the moving parts of the high-speed rotating rotor and the stationary parts.

The fineness of the product to be ground is determined by:

The grinding equipment
The perforation and type of screen ring
The feed rate
The air flow rate
The rotational speed (max. 150 m/s)

Changing any one of these parameters will alter the particle size distribution of the finished product.

Pin plates
Fine and ultra-fine grinding
Dry, non-clogging, brittle materials that are easy to grind.
Dispersion of very fine agglomerated particles.
Intensive mixing of different components through simultaneous grinding.
This unit does not use a sieving ring, thereby avoiding the risk of blockages.
The fineness of the grind is essentially determined by the rotational speed.

A de-clumping system fitted with a rotor and screens, designed to break up products that come in the form of clumped or lumpy pieces or blocks. The ELX is easy to clean, and access to the interior and to the parts in contact with the product is straightforward. Usually fitted with a knife rotor, the ELX lumpbreaker can also be used with a blade rotor, which is better suited to finer products that tend to clog.

Principle of operation:

Particle size is determined by the mesh size of the screen and the grinding tool. Their low rotational speed (less than 1 metre per second) allows the product to be processed without generating heat or excessive dust. Their compact design allows for easy integration into existing installations.

The SHR is the latest generation of our high-efficiency dynamic classifier. Our new SHR is used to classify a wide range of particles (d98 from 5 to 1,000 microns) with a high degree of efficiency. This gravity-fed classifier is particularly well-suited to high throughput rates, up to several hundred tonnes per hour.

The SHR is fitted with our patented SEALMAX seal, which ensures a superior, very clean cut even for very fine particles. The SHR is capable of achieving high fineness levels of up to D98 5 microns, depending on the product. It has been designed to be coupled with any type of crusher.

To improve the efficiency of this type of separator, POITTEMILL has developed an innovative air-purge system that extends the product’s residence time in the separation zone.

With this solution, recycling takes place externally and the plant’s recycling rate is now measurable and visible. We can optimise the entire classification process: optimising throughput, optimising vibrations, optimising particle size distribution curves and even specific energy consumption (kWh per tonne of production).

Function and Role:
Particle size separation: Small particles pass through the mesh of the sieve, whilst larger particles remain on the surface.
Protection and control: It removes agglomerates (lumps) and foreign matter to ensure a pure product and protect production lines.
Types of motion: Trajectories can be circular, linear or elliptical, depending on industrial requirements.

 

Main Sectors of Use:

Food and drink: Inspection of flours, spices, sugars and animal feed.
Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals: Precision sieving of fine powders and active ingredients.
Mining and Construction: Screening of sand, gravel, aggregates or drilling mud.
Recycling: Sorting of materials by particle size

Industrial Grinding

Reduce the size of your raw materials using a grinding process tailored to their properties and the desired particle size.

We analyse the processing parameters to balance grind fineness, throughput, finished product quality and the specific requirements of your application.

From a few hundred kilograms to several tonnes.

Grinding and particle size classification

Combine particle size reduction with classification to better control the particle size distribution.

This combination enables you to select the desired fractions, limit the presence of out-of-specification particles and tailor the characteristics of your powder to the requirements of your industrial process.

From a few hundred kilograms to several tonnes.

Grinding with drying

Certain materials require a process that combines particle size reduction and moisture control.

We analyse grinding and drying solutions in order to tailor the process to the characteristics of the feed material and the required output specifications.

From a few hundred kilograms to several tonnes.

Laboratory grinding mill– FNG00

Would you like to carry out trials on a few kilograms of material before considering processing on a larger scale? Our universal mill enables you to study how your products behave during grinding and to assess the results obtained against your particle size objectives.

This solution is ideal for your preliminary trials, characterising your materials or exploring new applications, before potentially moving on to industrial-scale processing.

Just a few kilograms to validate your project: contact our teams to discuss your requirements.

Crumbling and sieving

Agglomerated or compacted materials may require a de-agglomeration process to restore a usable granular structure.

Screening then enables the fractions to be separated according to the required particle size ranges and to meet the requirements of your specifications.

Particle size analyses to characterise your materials

  • Particle size analysis by dry laser diffraction
  • Hardgrove Index (HGI)
  • Moisture content
  • INR analysis

Why choose POITTEMILL ?

  • Manufacturer and engineer: we design and manufacture our own grinders, classifiers and complete production lines.
  • Nearly a century of industrial experience, specialising in fine and ultra-fine powders.
  • Test centre and laboratory: to validate each solution before implementation.
  • Process engineers specialising by sector.
  • Complementary characterisation facilities: Our particle size analysis and measurement equipment helps us to better understand materials and evaluate the results of processing operations.
  • An industrial partner for your projects: Beyond simply providing grinding services, our knowledge of industrial technologies enables us to offer a technical perspective on the processes and solutions likely to meet your future needs.
  • On-site support, right through to the final outcome.

Frequently Asked Questions: Contract Grinding and Micronisation Services

Q1: Does the POITTEMILL - FORPLEX Group offer a contract grinding service?

Answer:

Yes. The POITTEMILL – FORPLEX Group offers a dedicated contract grinding and industrial micronisation service. We make our machinery and test facilities available to manufacturers for the subcontracting of their production batches, from pilot testing to industrial-scale production runs.

Answer:

Our contract processing services include:

  • Fine and ultra-fine grinding (minerals, chemicals, foodstuffs, etc.).
  • Targeted micronisation to achieve specific particle sizes (d50/d90)
  • Crushing and de-lumping of your products
  • Particle size selection and particle size classification

Answer:

We handle everything from feasibility and trial batches weighing a few dozen kilograms to subcontracting campaigns involving several tonnes. Our teams tailor the operating parameters to your specifications and regulatory requirements.

Answer:

Our service is aimed at companies in the chemical, minerals and materials, pharmaceutical, agri-food (depending on the product) and recycling/circular economy sectors.

Answer:

You can contact our team of experts directly via our online form or by telephone. We will analyse your product’s Safety Data Sheet (SDS) and your specifications (target particle count, desired throughput) to provide you with a tailored proposal.

Answers:

Depending on the materials being processed, our pneumatic classification equipment and micronisers enable us to achieve particle sizes ranging from one millimetre down to a few micrometres (less than 10 µm), with strict control of the particle size distribution curves (d10, d50, d90). Each production run undergoes particle size analysis using laser diffraction to ensure compliance with your specifications.

Answers:

  • The pilot test / feasibility study enables us to determine technical feasibility, measure energy consumption and define the optimum particle size distribution for quantities ranging from a few kilograms to hundreds of kilograms of material.
  • Contract grinding (outsourcing) involves handling the regular or one-off industrial processing of your batches of raw materials (ranging from a few hundred kilograms to several tonnes), which are collected directly from you and returned in your specified packaging.

Let’s discuss your contract grinding project

Would you like to micronise a material, improve its particle size distribution, reduce its moisture content or identify the most suitable process for your application?

Our teams will review your enquiry to better understand your objectives and assess the possible solutions.

To enable us to analyse your project, please specify the following in particular:

  • The nature and characteristics of your material.
  • The initial particle size distribution and the desired final particle size distribution.
  • The throughput or tonnage to be processed.
  • Any specific constraints: moisture content, temperature, sensitivity, inerting or purity requirements.
  • The expected characteristics of the finished product.
Submit my project