Surge vessels such as silos are required for storing feedstock, in-process materials and final product between process steps such as blending, heating, cooling, purging, and tempering. While necessary to ensure material feed to value-add operations, they are often viewed as a required cost that does not provide direct return to the operation or product. Their primary function is material storage to decouple unit operations and allow for timing discrepancies between material delivery from upstream processes and feed required for downstream operations.

Reliable storage and feed of a bulk solid can be achieved with material flow properties testing and design of the silo and feeder according to the results of testing. Once material behavior is confirmed through testing, being able to accurately predict fill and flow sequences within surge vessels will allow for integration of value-add operations to new or existing silos and bins. By achieving this the silo becomes not only a storage system to decouple unit operations but also adds value in the process train. There are a number of different operations that have been successfully integrated into silos which will be reviewed as case studies in this webinar, along with the factors one must consider when evaluating a material and process for suitability of processing in a surge vessel.