HIGH PROFILE
Perfecting process design
AKW Equipment + Process Design based in Hirschau,
Germany, has a long history of providing innovative
solutions to the mining sector. Paul Moore caught up with
General Manager, Thibaut Richard
Q How would you broadly describe AKW’s offering
to the mining and minerals industry?
A We have been active in the mining sector for 50
years, while our company AKW Equipment +
Process Design was established in 1963. Within
the overall mining value chain, our company
focuses on the ‘separation step’, primarily in the
wet mechanical treatment of ores and minerals.
We offer a wide range of proprietary process
equipment types that had been developed and
were further optimised during the time we were
part of a major international mineral processing
company involved in kaolin, silica sand and
feldspar processing. We further gradually
developed a strong engineering expertise, and
started to develop complete mineral processing
concepts and plants. Naturally, we gradually
moved into project management and execution, to
become nowadays an important EPC player, active
in the international mining sector.
Q On customisation, would you say every project
is unique in terms of machine configuration? What
level of trials and ore testing do you conduct in
the plant and at customer sites before final plant
design?
A Definitely, each project is unique. Starting from
this observation, we clearly positioned ourselves
as a supplier of tailor-made solutions which will fit
to the specific needs of the customers. This
means that most of our sales are non-standard
solutions: we aim at fulfilling 100% of what the
customer requires and not just a portion of it
based on what would be available “off the shelf.”
Although such an approach requires more work
intensity from our side, our experience shows that
it is the most preferred approach by the customer
because it also is the solution they need for the
long term success of their operations.
Comprehensive and extensive tests in our
laboratory, we believe, is important and key, as
this is the first milestone in a project opportunity
and is important for the customer to feel
comfortable and gain confidence on the
engineering partner and equipment supplier he is
about to select. Through our testing, we also
define and set on paper the process guarantees
that we give to the customer for the specifically
designed process and flow sheet.
In order to review the composition of the raw
46 International Mining | APRIL 2019
material with regard to their chemical and
physical characteristics, the customer is
requested to provide us with a representative
sample for testing purposes. In a lot of cases also
a visit directly at customer site takes place to get
a feeling about the raw material deposit and
surroundings.
Q In the over 50 years of your history are there
particular innovation and product development
milestones that you would single out as being
important in your mineral processing offering?
A Real new inventions in the sector of wet
mechanical processing are still infrequent, due to
the fact that this science is more than 500 years
old. Still, at AKW A+V, we have been at the origin
of the industrial development of hydrocyclones.
Simply look at the technical literature, and one
will find many references made to some of our
team members, who greatly contributed to the
better understanding of this unique processing
equipment. We then further pursued the
investigations in this field by developing unique
materials that today are still being used as base
material for the manufacturing of our
hydrocyclones. Important nowadays is the
continuous development of the apparatus/
machines, so that it constantly follows the market
requirements and brings benefits to the users. As
an example, at the end of the 1990s, the attrition
cell had the reputation of wasting energy. AKW
A+V performed a comprehensive series of tests, to
demonstrate that a combination of tight control of
the feed concentration with a high power intensity
can greatly improve the output quality. We have
also engaged ourselves for many years in the
development of smart classification systems, that
auto-correct themselves in order to deliver a
regular output, as per the specifications set. In
this respect, our smart hydrosizer AKA-SIZER and
our smart sorter AKA-SORT have gained a great
market acceptance.
Q Does being a private company give you more
room to make investments where you feel R&D is
needed? Likewise, do you think it allows you to
give mining customers and more personal and
customised service?
A Being part of a private company allows us –
especially with a broad-minded management