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Alex Schmidt, ASCO: “The new micropellet extruder plate can be used in a wide range of ASCO dry ice pelletisers.”

As Head of Product Management, Alex Schmidt maintains an overview of the ASCO product range and oversees all product innovations in the ‘dry ice’ sector. In addition to the 3 mm, 10 mm and 16 mm extruder plates, ASCO pelletisers now also offer the option of producing 1.7 mm pellets using multiple ASCO pelletisers. A new extruder plate has been specially developed for this purpose; thanks to its unique properties, it produces optimal dry ice pellets for dry ice blasting. In this interview, Alex Schmidt explains the background to the latest ASCO development.

Mr Schmidt, could you please briefly outline the advantages of the 1.7 mm pellets compared to the larger pellets?
These so-called micro-pellets can be used in a wide range of blasting machines and provide an even finer blasting finish without the need to first crush or grind the pellets. This means that our customers and dry ice producers are now able to supply their blasting customers with a comprehensive range of different dry ice pellet sizes of the highest quality using their existing dry ice production facilities.

How did the development of the new extruder plate proceed? What were the biggest challenges?
The 1.7 mm extruder plates were already available in the past for older ASCO pelletisers such as the A120P, so we were generally familiar with the development steps and designs. However, the biggest limitation up to now had always been the significant reduction in the pelletisers’ maximum production capacity, in some cases to below 50%.
From the outset, our aim was for the new extruder plates to be fully compatible with all our current pelletisers, from the P15i through the P28i to the high-performance P55i with two compression chambers, whilst keeping capacity restrictions to a minimum. This presented a major challenge, as the capacities of these pelletisers vary greatly and therefore different forces are at work during the pressing process. However, we were able to bridge this gap in practice thanks to our many years of expertise, and with the new extruder plates, we have only minor capacity restrictions (7–29%, depending on the pelletiser) on the machines mentioned. Very few manufacturers on the market achieve this.

Where do you see opportunities for the future?
The ongoing optimisation of our products and adaptation to customer needs is only part of our work. We still see great potential in flexible solutions and the high degree of compatibility of our dry ice production machines within systems. To this end, we are currently developing solutions that offer our customers a high degree of flexibility and reliability when setting up or expanding their dry ice production, whilst also generating enormous added value through the latest technologies. Our customers can look forward to one or two new product launches in the near future…