Approximate reading time: 5 minutes

 It is worth noting that in 1859, Berlin-born engineer Friedrich Hoffmann patented a revolutionary kiln in Prussia and Austria which he described as “Invention of a round-shaped continuous-feed baking kiln for all kinds of bricks, ceramics products, lime, chalk and the like.”

Yet it was one year earlier that the first kiln, later know by its inventor’s name, was commissioned in Scholwin, Prussia (currently Poland), in 1858.

The concept of continuous kiln enhanced energy efficiency of stop-start kilns by two-thirds, and so from 1858 to 1870 over 700 Hoffman kilns were built in Europe, half of them in Prussia.

Although today the tunnel kiln beats the Hoffman kiln in terms of achievable energy efficiency, baking quality and level of automation, in historical terms Hoffman’s invention must be commended for the energy-efficient revolution experienced in the ceramics industry and particularly for consumer pockets at the end of his days.

It is interesting to note that, although it started its engineering activity while the tunnel kiln was fully dominant in the industry, in 1991 BERALMAR built in Egypt the only fuel-oil-fired Hoffman kiln in its history.

At the Indian Ceramics fair in Mumbai (India), BERALMAR gave a presentation on 12 March under entitled “Modern and viable technologies for baking with solid fuels in the ceramics industry”, sharing its experience in the field with a local audience.

The presentation, organised by the ECTS (European Ceramic Technology Suppliers) association, involved several presentations given by European association-member suppliers.

Since the end of March, the BERALMAR corporate website has two new versions: Portuguese and Russian.

This means the BERALMAR is now available in 10 languages: German, Catalan, Spanish, French, Hungarian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian and Serbo-Croat, achieving its goal of taking corporate and product information on BERALMAR TECNOLOGIC to our customers and friends more directly and intelligibly: in their own language.

The BERALMAR website is a comprehensive source of information, soon to be broadened with the new Information for the Ceramist, where you can find all sorts of information on baking and drying techniques.

Barcelona’s daily “El Periódico de Catalunya” published a feature on BERALMAR on 25/02/2008.

The feature highlights BERALMAR’s ability to supply equipment for all types of fuel, and specialisation in solid-fuel combustion equipment and growth in engineering activity.

BERALMAR is highly experienced in building different types of dryer: chamber, on-shelf semi-continuous, on-platform semi-continuous, fast and green load on kiln trailer. The latter type of dryer, branded LLEVANT, combined with the PRESTHERMIC sealed kiln, is achieving excellent energy efficiency levels, well worth considering.

The energy benefits of green load on trailer are well known, yet the new in-dryer hot air recovery system, combined with the PRESTHERMIC sealed kiln’s energy efficiency, take this efficiency even further, as evidenced by a Spanish ceramics works that has two green load on trailer production lines, which just compared respective consumption rates for the last 12 months: the first line, built 10 years ago, using a traditional tunnel kiln, has a specific baking and drying consumption rate of 314 Kcal/kg, while the new line, built by BERALMAR in 2006, with its sealed tunnel kiln, has an astonishingly low consumption rate: 288 Kcal/kg for drying and baking. To put this comparison into fair perspective, consider this:

- the two production lines uses the same clay

- the kilns have the same width and the wagons are built to the same standard

This consumption data, calculated by the ceramics works, are evidence of the efficiency of the LLEVANT dryer + PRESTHERMIC kiln combination.