Dairy Farm Utilizes Screw Conveyor for Recycling Cow Manure

General Description

CEI Builders is a leading commercial contractor serving clients in Nevada, California, and Arizona. With extensive experience in many disciplines, CEI provides engineering and construction services to the industrial, healthcare, gaming & hospitality industries. CEI Builders worked with a local dairy to clean up wastewater discharge, reduce environmental impact, and utilize byproducts such as cow manure as a source of organic fertilizer and clean energy.

Water is pulled from the dairy’s lagoon for flushing sand and manure from the barn area. Sand is separated and dried where it is reused in the barn area. Cow manure and water are screened, and 85-percent of the moisture is removed before the manure continues to the hydrolyzer. The hydrolyzer is a tank that aggregates and homogenizes material before it is transferred to an anaerobic digester where methane gas is captured and turned into natural gas. Water is cleaned and re-used to clean out stalls and irrigate crops. Dry manure is used in the fields to supplement crop-nutrient needs.

Design Parameters

1. Product Type: Wet Manure
2. Material Density: 25 Lbs. per Cubic Foot
3. Capacity: 797 Cubic Feet per Hour
4. Duty: 24 Hours per Day, 7 Days per Week

KWS Advantages

KWS worked with CEI to design a screw conveyor to transfer wet manure from a screen separator to a hydrolyzer. KWS supplied 3D models to make sure that equipment fit up and within the area provided while having room for service. KWS has over 50 years’ experience in the bulk material handling and environmental industries and made the screw conveyor very robust in design and easy for maintenance.

KWS Special Features

The new KWS screw conveyor was built from very heavy-duty carbon steel construction with split tubular housing and abrasion resistant liners. Tubular housings are used in applications where the incline or decline is 20-degrees or higher. Since the new screw conveyor need to be cleaned out or inspected regularly, KWS provided split tubular housings. Abrasion resistant liners are 98-percent harder than standard carbon steel and used with moderately abrasive bulk materials to increase equipment life. The unit was located on a 20-degree decline so the wet manure would easily convey to the hydrolyzer.

A direct-drive shaft mounted gear reducer was used for a compact and cost-effective design. Direct-drive shaft mount gear reducers provide fewer components, and the footprint is reduced when compared to other drive arrangements. A cable safety stop control unit provided quick shutoff of the conveyor in an emergency. A cable is externally mounted around the sides of the conveyor and connected to a control unit. By pulling the cable, output contacts located inside the control unit are activated, stopping the conveyor.