2017 Year in Review

2017 was an exciting year for many industries; themes such as the battery and electric vehicle boom, a push toward renewable energies, and feeding a growing population, saw many industries, particularly metals and minerals, ramping up for potentially big changes.

Looking back over the year, these themes were very much reflected in our industry involvement, as well as in all of the news and resources that were added to the FEECO website over the past year.

Here are some of this year’s highlights…

Improved Testing Capabilities

The FEECO Innovation Center is a unique testing and tolling facility that can accommodate batch and continuous pilot scale testing for agglomeration, drying, and high temperature thermal processing applications. Over the past few years, we’ve continued to advance the capabilities of the Innovation Center to provide customers with a more seamless process and/or product development experience.

This year, we partnered up with Microtrac, leaders in advanced particle analysis, to add in-line, advanced particle analysis capabilities to the Innovation Center. This dramatically improves the testing and development experience, as data points such as thickness, surface roughness, particle size distribution, and more, are all gathered in real-time without disrupting the process or the need for manual samples.

Engaging with Industry

Tradeshows & Conferences

As in years past, we exhibited and attended a number of key industry tradeshows and conferences to stay current on industry news and issues, as well as to showcase our innovative equipment, systems, and services. This year, we went to:

Phosphates 2017 Conference
Argus FMB Added Value Fertilizers Conference
Wisconsin Farm Technology Days
North American Manure Expo
Frac Sand Supply and Logistics Conference
Midwest Manure Summit
American Institute for Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Annual Conference
Institute for Briquetting & Agglomeration Biennial Conference
Fertilizer Outlook and Technology Conference

Sustainable Phosphorus Alliance

FEECO has been a long-standing, active contributor in the fight to resolve the issues surrounding nutrient runoff. As such, we are proud to make our involvement official through joining the Sustainable Phosphorus Alliance – the country’s pre-eminent advocate for the sustainable use, recovery, and recycling of phosphorus in the food system.

This year, the recovery and reuse of phosphorus was a highly debated topic globally, with toxic algal blooms causing dead zones in waterways around the world.

Learn more about the conversation on nutrient recycling in our guest post for the alliance, Phosphorus Extraction from Wastes: The Key to Phosphorus Problems?

Publications

2017 saw FEECO featured in a number of industry publications, including:

Copper Worldwide Magazine

FEECO was also featured this year in an article in Copper Worldwide Magazine; the article showcased our pugmill mixers, which have become an integral piece of equipment in the copper smelting process, where they are used to achieve a uniform blend of feed components.

Potash Works Magazine

PotashWorks magazine is the potash industry’s only dedicated publication. This year, in addition to an article highlighting our potash equipment and services, PotashWorks was sent out with a complimentary copy of the FEECO Potash Processing Handbook.

World Fertilizer

World Fertilizer is a ground-breaking magazine with a global readership. As a fertilizer industry expert, World Fertilizer has continued to seek the expertise of FEECO for featured articles on topics including granulation and cooling, among others.

Additional Resources

As part of our continued effort to improve our customers’ experience and aid in the buying process, we’ve continued to add a wide variety of valuable resources to the FEECO website.

Infographics

Providing complex information in an easily digestible format continues to be a top priority in helping our customers through the decision making process. As such, we’ve put together a number of infographics to do just that:

Brochures

Similarly, we have continued to add to our library of brochures, with new additions including:

Project Profiles

We’ve added a number of project profiles this year to continue to give our customers confidence through our demonstrated success across a wide variety of industries. New profiles include:

Material Pages

We’ve also continued to expand our material-specific resources through the addition of various material processing pages. With over 65 years of expertise in testing and developing custom processes and equipment, there are not many materials we haven’t worked with. As these materials continue to grow in importance, we wanted to bring these resources to the forefront, providing as much information as possible. New material pages include:

The FEECO Handbook

The FEECO Handbook, originally published in the 1970s, has long served as an asset for many industries, providing valuable data such as material weights, conveyor horsepower calculations, engineering constants, and a wealth of information around FEECO equipment and services. In 2017, we began working on a revised edition of the handbook – the first update in more than nearly two decades. The handbook will serve as a comprehensive resource for information on agglomeration, bulk solids drying and cooling, high temperature thermal processing with rotary kilns, and bulk material handling.

We plan to launch distribution of the highly anticipated handbook in early 2018.

We thank you once again for your continued support, and hope that you find the additions valuable. We look forward to providing you with even more resources in the year to come.