FEECO's rotary coolers are custom designed for your specific processing needs. Whether you require chilled or ambient cooling air, short or long residence times, carbon steel or specialty steels, FEECO's design team can design a rotary cooler system for your application.

Many of our customers are not sure if a rotary cooler is the correct piece of equipment for their needs. FEECO offers a number of complimentary services up front to help you answer some of these questions:

1. Process Design Program - Our computerized process design program can determine the best rotary cooler for your application in minutes.
   
   
2. Automated Drawing Program - Based on the above data, we can create a general arrangement drawing of your rotary cooler in Auto CAD in a short time frame. This can be very useful at the beginning stages for overall plant design, or determining if the rotary cooler unit will fit into an existing space.
   
   
3. Computer Costing Program - We can generate an approximate cost of your rotary cooler system in a short time frame to see if the unit will fit your budget.

Design Features Include:

• Specially designed lifting flights to maximize heat transfer between the material and cooling air
  
  
• State-of-the-art computer programs such as finite element analysis and mechanical desktop to optimize the equipment design
  
  
• Heavy duty design and construction for many years of service
  
  
• Over 50 years of experience
  
  
• Process and Mechanical Warranties
  
  
• Not juts an equipment supplier - FEECO offers turnkey systems for easy one stop shopping backed up by system warranties

Our experience base is vast and wide. We can offer cost competitive designs for pilot scale units that process as little as one ton per hour to heavy duty units in excess of 17 foot in diameter that process hundreds of tons per hour.

Typical Process Applications include:

• Fertilizers (potash, DAP, MAP, NPK, TSP)
• Minerals and Ores (Copper, Iron, etc.)
• Limestone and Lime
• Sand and Gravel
• Propants
• Industrial Waste and Sludges
• Municipal Waste

FEECO Takes the Heat out of DDGS

FEECO, a world leading manufacturer of rotary coolers has developed a counter-flow cooler for use on Distillers Dried Grains with Solubles (DDGS) in the ethanol industry. FEECO's technical capability and experience with rotary counter-flow coolers assures 'best of class' equipment and performance for your ethanol plant.

Why counter-flow?

Counter-flow cooling provides inherent advantages that absolutely cannot be achieved with alternate approaches. Counter-flow cooling is recognized as more efficient and effective than cross-flow or co-flow cooling, including fluid bed and negative lift systems.

Principle of Operation

Counter-flow cooling uses air moving in the opposite direction to the DDGS flow. The DDGS discharging from the dryer is exposed to the warmest air available within the cooler, minimizing the temperature shock. As the DDGS travels the length of the cooler it is continuously in contact with the cooler air. Utilizing special design techniques, DDGS discharge temperatures within 10°F of the ambient air temperature can be achieved, without mechanical cooling. The gradual heat transfer enhances the product quality and provides cooler, more stable DDGS.

Counter-flow cooling benefits:

• Improved product quality
• Lower DDGS discharge temperature
• Lower operating costs
• Less cooling air required
• Reduced storage problems (mold, mildew, etc)
• High reliability and low maintenance
• Reduced dryer energy requirements

Nobody Breaks this Law!

The Second Law of Thermodynamics states "Heat cannot of itself pass from a colder to a hotter body". All coolers MUST obey this law. Counter-flow coolers maximize the heat transfer from the DDGS to the air by constantly having the DDGS in contact with the entire flow of air at a lower temperature. On a typical DDGS cooling application counter-flow cooling will provide a significantly lower DDGS discharge temperature.

The charts below compare cooling results using the same conditions. The predicted field results for the counter-flow cooler are better than the best case results for the co-flow or cross-flow coolers.

So why doesn't everyone use Counter-flow Cooling for DDGS?

The thermal analysis of counter-flow cooling is the easy part. The complicated part is the physical design of a counter-flow cooler for powders and small particulates. Designing an efficient and effective counter-flow cooler for DDGS is more difficult than designing an inefficient co-flow or cross-flow cooler.

FEECO has over 40 years experience designing and fabricating counter-flow rotary drum coolers. FEECO has a demonstrated expertise and understanding of the subtle difference between rotary drum counter-flow coolers and co-flow dryers. FEECO combines this expertise with a reputation for robust construction to provide an efficient, effective counter-flow cooler.