Carbon International Trading (Pty) Ltd (CIT), a Durrans Group company, operates a vertical shaft kiln calcination plant in Sasolburg in the Free State province of South Africa and has been in operation since July 2019. Carbon International recently commissioned and built a state-of-the-art laboratory at their facilities to ensure that their product always remains in the customer requested specifications.

The laboratory can carry out a range of tests, such as, but not limited to, ash and volatile matter making use of muffle furnaces, moisture with an oven, sulphur and nitrogen with equipment and particle size distribution using a mechanical sieve shaker. There is also a laboratory scale crusher which brings the material into the correct size specification for the respective tests.

The laboratory is built on land purchased that is adjacent to the existing facility.

Carbon International Trading (Pty) Ltd (CIT), a Durrans Group company, operates a vertical shaft kiln calcination plant in Sasolburg in the Free State province

Carbon International successfully operates a 16-Shaft, Vertical Shaft Calciner to produce a variety of high-quality Calcined Petroleum and Pitch Cokes. The vertical shaft calciner or kiln, often referred to as a “VSK”, has a calcined coke capacity of approximately fifteen thousand metric ton per annum and was commissioned in 2019.

“It is the only VSK of its kind in Africa, and outside of China it is one of only a few VSK’s in the world. Calcining coke in a VSK is truly unique and boasts many environmental, commercial, as well as product benefits,” explains Stefan Pfeffer, a Carbon International Trading (Pty) Ltd Director.

“The plant is extremely energy efficient and self-sustaining, requiring no external sources of energy, such as electricity or gas to provide the required thermal input. Furthermore, the indirect heating of the green coke material removes the potential of finer material burning away, thus improving product yield and minimising the calcining losses. In addition to not combusting the fines, the fines also agglomerate in the VSK, further increasing the overall yield of calcined coke and of coarser grading compared to the green coke feed.”

“Carbon International has the ability to produce customised raw material blends to meet chemical and physical calcined coke properties required by a diverse spectrum of industries. Green coke material is received on site in bulk by means of a tipper truck. The material is fed into the process manually using a front-end loader. From there the material is transferred into the VSK shaft hoppers automatically via a charge car.”

“Once the green coke enters the material channels it is exposed to an indirect heat at calcining temperatures and begins to release its inherent moisture and volatile matter. The volatile matter is captured and introduced into an air rich environment, where it spontaneously combusts. The flow of air, volatile matter and flue gas is carefully controlled and the combustion channels of the VSK are constantly kept under a slight negative pressure.”

“Although the process is completely automated, it is controlled by a skilled and experienced furnace operator. The operator has the ability to manually operate the VSK in upset or in emergency conditions.”

“Prior to being cooled down and discharged from the VSK into a common hopper, the material will have undergone a fifty-two-hour indirect heat soak.”

“Once the material exits the VSK it can be sold directly as a run-of-kiln product, alternatively, further value can be added in our crushing, grading and packaging plant. In this facility Carbon International has the ability to produce a range of customer requested gradings, in a variety of packaging configurations. The packaged material is taken by road truck to the end user directly or to the nearest seaport for export.”

Carbon International recently commissioned and built a state-of-the-art laboratory at their facilities to ensure that their product always remains in the customer requested specifications. The laboratory can carry out a range of tests, such as, but not limited to, ash and volatile matter making use of muffle furnaces, moisture with an oven, sulphur and nitrogen with equipment and particle size distribution using a mechanical sieve shaker. There is also a laboratory scale crusher which brings the material into the correct size specification for the respective tests. The laboratory is built on land purchased that is adjacent to the existing facility

“Carbon International is ISO9001:2015 certified and has a rigorous quality management system. We adhere to stringent health and safety protocols on all operations and are fully compliant with the Occupational Health and Safety act, as well as global safety standards. Carbon International prides itself in providing a safe and comfortable workspace environment, as well as being an employer of choice; we truly value our employees.”

“Furthermore, we pride ourselves in creating a sustainable operation, through making a positive impact on the surrounding community, being more energy efficient, producing less waste, as well as reducing the company’s carbon footprint. The operation currently produces no process waste and a large portion of the electricity consumed by the facility is produced from our own PV Solar Plant.”

Other companies in the Durrans Group: James Durrans & Sons Limited
James Durrans & Sons Limited was established in 1863 and supplies the world’s manufacturing industries with carbonaceous materials from refractory coatings, milled coal dust and anthracite, metallurgical and petroleum cokes, friction and lubricants products through to natural and specialist synthetic graphitic products. The company has nine manufacturing sites spread across the world.

Durrans RMS (Pty) Ltd
Durrans RMS (Pty) Ltd was established in 1999 in South Africa as a joint venture (JV) between the Durrans Group and Resistant Materials Services (Pty) Ltd (RMS). This company specialises in the manufacture and distribution of refractory coatings and refractory parting mediums that are both water and alcohol based. Additionally, Durrans RMS distributes the range of carbon products from the Durrans Group in South Africa and neighbouring countries. For further details contact TEL: 011 917 0702, email rms@rmscc.co.za or visit www.rmsproducts.co.za

Carbon International Ltd
Carbon International, a UK-headquartered supplier of carbon-based products to the world’s manufacturing industries. Carbon International Limited processes and manufactures high purity and granular carbonaceous materials. It offers medium sulfur and low sulfur carburisers, metallurgical coke, machined graphite and slag coagulant. The company was incorporated in 1991 and is based in Bilston, United Kingdom. Carbon International Limited operates as a subsidiary of James Durrans and Sons Limited.

For further details contact Carbon International Trading TEL: 016 100 5255 or email info@cit-za.com