MINING & PROCESSING
We carefully select our raw materials to ensure that they do not contain any harmful levels of silicas, fibrous materials, heavy metals, catalytic metals, chlorine compounds, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, dioxins or other know undesirable materials.
Clays for acid-activation are mainly from Gujarat, and natural clays are from the Deccan plateau, in India. Such high-purity clays are difficult to find in large deposits in other locations globally.
Quality begins at the mine-site, where the raw clay is selectively mined under the watchful eyes of our mining specialists.
The quality of the material in the stockpiles is verified and approved before it is packed into containers, and then shipped to Malaysia for further processing.
Containerized shipment is utilized to minimize handling, and particularly to ensure that as far as is practicably possible, no contamination of the raw clay occurs during the transportation to our processing plant.
The raw clay is received directly into our warehouse, where its quality is verified prior to feeding into the production process. Throughout the processing, the quality is checked to ensure the products match our specifications, both before and after packing.
The products are stored in our warehouse prior to dispatch to our customers, locally by bulk-powder tanker, and packed products by lorries, or to our export markets in 20 foot containers.
Our laboratory is well equipped to test our products which are primarily controlled according to their Moisture Content, Oil-Filtration Time (filterability) and their bleaching performance. Other parameters such as Bulk Density, Hedley Acidity and pH are also assessed.
SPECIFICATIONS
The specified quality parameters for our bleaching earths reflect their importance to the refiner. The parameters are Activity, Moisture Content and Oil-Filtration Time.
Activity is a measure of the performance for the removal of the pigments and other impurities, and is expressed as a percentage versus the standard, for each grade of bleaching earth. Activity is an important parameter as it reflects the quantity of bleaching earth that will be required for the refining of given oil.
Moisture content is important as is relates to the flow properties of the bleaching earth. Too high a moisture content would result in difficulty in conveying the bleaching earth powder. Too low moisture content can adversely affects the performance of the bleaching earth.
Oil-Filtration Time is important as it relates to the filtration rate when separating the spent bleaching earth from the oil being processed.
If the oil-filtration time is too long, then the production rate at the filtration stage of refining would decrease. If the oil passes through the spent bleaching earth too quickly, then the press-bleach effect would be reduced, resulting in a lower than optimum removal of impurities, e.g. give a higher bleached oil color. The oil-filtration time is therefore carefully controlled to the optimum level.
