We start our virtual Showcase with the beginning of our plant operations: raw materials and drying.
Incoming raw minerals are trucked from our mines and stockpiled in our 21,000-square-foot storage building. Of all the materials we process, two make up about 60% of our annual production:
1) Our diatomaceous earth with calcium montmorillonite comes from a unique deposit near Red Lake, BC. This combination of minerals is found nowhere else in North America, and there is only one other such deposit in the world. The Red Lake deposit formed 10 to 12 million years ago, as the skeletal remains of freshwater diatoms mixed with volcanic ash and accumulated in layers on an ancient lakebed.
2) We also process zeolite from our deposit near Princeton, BC. Our zeolite is used for a variety of industrial and agricultural purposes, including custom fertilizers; it is the major mineral component of Better Than Bone Meal. Customer demand for zeolite is increasing; Progressive’s 8th largest customer now buys zeolite exclusively in 26-tonne truckloads.
The sheer size of our dryer alone – 8 feet in diameter, 80 feet long, and heated by a natural gas burner outputting 45 million BTU – is a testament to both the massive amount of minerals we currently process and our capacity for production growth. We dry over 55,0000 tonnes of material annually with a maximum capacity of about 445,000 tonnes.
The raw materials are coarsely broken down before being conveyed into the dryer. Although the dryer burner fires at temperatures of up to 2000 degrees Fahrenheit, the mineral product itself never exceeds 160 degrees. After 15 to 30 minutes of drying, the product is reduced to about 8% moisture and exits the dryer at 150 degrees F, ready for the next stage of processing. One of Progressive Planet’s future projects is to increase the passive solar drying of the diatomaceous earth, reducing the dryer time and natural gas needed.
We utilize technology to our fullest advantage here. All parts of the dryer system are computer controlled and temperature monitored. A variable frequency drive allows full operational control of the dryer according to production needs. Discharge air is fully filtered by a baghouse moving air at 25,000 cubic feet per minute for removal of steam and dust so that all particulate matter is captured and not released into the atmosphere. The British Columbia Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy monitors our discharge stack to ensure regulatory compliance.
As important as the dryer is to our current processes, it will be even more critical for our developing technologies. Plans are underway for the capture and sequestration of the carbon dioxide resulting from the drying process in our products like PozGlass 100G™. PozGlass 100G™ is Progressive Planet’s revolutionary, patent-pending supplementary cementitious material (SCM) in which CO2 acts to significantly improve the performance of the end product compared to untreated ground glass pozzolan. You’ll learn more about PozGlass 100G in posts to come as your virtual tour continues.