AFRICA NEWS
National Asphalt’s new plant opens its doors
National Asphalt’s new 120-tonne capacity asphalt plant at Laezonia is designed by the company to optimise efficiencies and
reduce environmental impact.
The in-house design of National
Asphalt’s new asphalt plant at its
Laezonia site north of Johannesburg
is set to give customers the comfort
of lower environmental impact while
still enjoying competitive pricing of
asphalt supply.
The 120-tonne capacity plant, which
has boosted the company’s capability
in the region, incorporates several
tried-and-tested improvements based
on the company’s extensive industry
experience. According to Dave Bennett,
general manager at National Asphalt,
among these is better burner fuel
efficiency and reduced hydrocarbon
emissions.
“The plant design reduces emissions
from the combined aggregates,
efficiently burning this up before it goes
www.plantonline.co.za
to the bag house,” Bennett says. “This
gives our new installation a far cleaner
and environmentally friendly stack than
a conventional plant.”
Dust is removed using both a pre-
cleaner and a bag house. In the pre-
cleaner, material sized between 0.6mm
and up to 2mm is dropped into a rotary
valve, from where carefully controlled
volumes are fed back into the plant.
Material smaller than 0.3mm and right
down to 0.075mm, is caught in bags,
removed using pulsing and similarly fed
back into production.
Recognising the growing importance
of using recycled asphalt (RA), the
innovative design of the new National
Asphalt plant employs efficient heating
methods to reduce environmental
impact as well as fuel costs.
While many plants in the market use
super-heated virgin aggregate to heat
the RA, the super-heating process
consumes considerable fuel resources.
Significantly, the design installed at
the National Asphalt Laezonia plant
nullifies the requirement to super-heat.
This has been done by ‘scavenging’
heat through both conductive and
radiant heat transfer to the RA and the
combined mix.
“The plant is built according to
specifications developed by National
Asphalt over time, and which represents
the best value to our customers,”
Bennett says. “Asphalt users in and
around Gauteng can now benefit from
the increased efficiency, economy and
environmental benefits of our new
facility,” he concludes.
JUNE 2019
5