Bio-diesel boom invigorates mechanical engineering sector
Hamburg-Harburg –
The extraction of oils from biological raw materials is a process with a long tradition. Even in ancient times, vegetable oils were used in the preparation of food, and the use of rape seed oil as a combustible source of energy dates back to the Middle Ages. With fossil fuels in increasingly short supply, the extraction of energy from biological sources is once more gaining in importance. The market for bio-diesel derived from rape seed oil is growing steadily - to the benefit of Harburg-Freudenberger Maschinenbau GmbH, the world market leader in screw presses. This technology holds the key to the manufacture of plant-based energy sources.
“Thanks to the boom in bio-diesel, worldwide demand for high-performance screw presses for the extraction of rape seed oil has soared,“ commented Günter Simon, General Manager of Harburg-Freudenberger. “We are currently manufacturing more machinery than we have done for years. If the positive development continues in the market for plant-based energy sources, we expect our production volume to double over the next five years.“
“Krupp presses” from Harburg
The plant in the Hamburg suburb of Harburg has been producing highperformance machinery since 1948 for the mechanical separation of oil from oil seeds, extracting fats from animal waste products and various applications in the chemical industry. Having formerly belonged to the Krupp Group and subsequently to ThyssenKrupp, the company was sold last year to Possehl Holding, based in Lübeck. Nonetheless, Harburg-Freudenberger screw presses are still known the world over as “Krupp presses“. The machines will continue to carry the traditional German brand for the next two years, by which time the new name of the business will be equally well known in industry circles.
Efficient and reliable
The machines made in Hamburg-Harburg owe their excellent reputation to their reliability, ease of operation, high throughput and extraction rates and their resistance to wear and tear. The principle on which the screw presses operate is simplicity itself. An endless screw or auger rotates inside an enclosed steel casing. Seeds are fed into the screw which compresses them until the oil they contain is squeezed out and collected. These highperformance units can process up to 650 tons of seed per day, extracting up to 400,000 liters of oil.
Two thousandth press soon to be delivered
In the weeks ahead the 2,000th screw press will be shipped out. As further proof of the success of these presses and their popularity, in some countries attempts are being made to copy the Harburg-Freudenberger technology. But of course no copy can match the quality of the original ‘made in Germany‘. Not least because the performance and efficiency of these screw presses are constantly being enhanced through continuous product improvements and frequent technical innovations. Harburg-Freudenberger will shortly be launching a new press featuring a compact but even more powerful drive together with a number of other new technical features in order to further improve the performance to meet the booming demand for bio-diesel.
The world leader
Harburg-Freudenberger Maschinenbau GmbH with a workforce of 1060 worldwide is one of the leading mechanical engineering and service companies in the field of rubber compounding, caoutchouc and edible oil technology. With production plants in three countries (Germany, Croatia and the US) and representative offices throughout the world, the company last year generated sales in excess of EUR 170 million. Since the summer of 2005, the business belongs to the Possehl Group, based in Lübeck. For further information on the company and its products visit www.harburg-freudenberger.de.
