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Atritor Limited - The basic facts

  • The name Atritor was the name given in the 1920's to the machine developed to simultaneously dry, mill, classify and blow pulverised fuel (coal) into burner systems on boilers, kilns, furnaces etc. The machine is still referred to as 'the Atritor' but qualified with the words 'Dryer-Pulveriser'


  • From the 1920's until 1980 Atritor was the machine sold successfully worldwide - over 2000 plants - by the Combustion Division of Alfred Herbert Ltd., a global machine tool company employing 12,000 people in Coventry, UK


  • During this time, applications for the simultaneous drying and milling of materials branched out into wider minerals, chemicals, food ingredients and waste products areas


  • By 1979 Alfred Herbert as an organisation was feeling the strain of tight international competition and eventually was broken up and partly liquidated. The Combustion Division (Atritor) was purchased by Seb Rosin in 1980 and renamed 'Atritor Ltd.' Seb Rosin is our chairman and is very active in the business


  • Seb had built a successful drying company - Rosin Engineering - particularly famous in the starch and wheat gluten sectors, where Rosin ring dryers are a household name. In the mid 90's this company was sold to GEA (eg Niro) and combined with Barr & Murphy to be reborn Barr-Rosin


  • A few years before this time Atritor branched out product wise and developed the Multirotor Cell Mill, a machine based on the Jaeckering / Altenberger Ultrarotor, extremely successful for a wide range of simultaneous drying & milling, and milling & classification applications


  • The Cell Mill does basically what the Atritor Dryer-Pulveriser does but is much more energy intensive, therefore producing much finer powders. This is illustrated by the comparative rotor tip speeds of the 2 machines; Cell Mill max. = 120 m/s ; Atritor D-P = 80 m/s max. It is also very good for high integrity surface coating of minerals with performance-enhancing dispersants


  • This period also saw Atritor Ltd purchasing the rights to a range of designs, from 50 - 900 mm diameter, of micronising mills - also known as 'spiral jet mills' or 'pancake mills' and generically as 'micronisers'. This started a slow but steady progress into the pharmaceutical industry as well as general industrial micronising / jet milling applications


  • Since the late 90's Atritor has also added the DCM, dynamic classifier mill, to its product range. This is not produced in house but built by one of 2 main suppliers, meaning that margins to Atritor are low. Our flagship order with Borculo / Friesland for 2 160kW stainless steel systems however demonstrates the benefits of diversity. This unit is well suited to general milling applications if the products are relatively easy to mill, such as sugar, powder coatings - where this mill is universal - chemical crystals, lactose etc


  • In the interests of diversity in an unpredictable world Atritor has formed alliances with companies offering parallel or complimentary technologies. From Scott USA, Atritor markets the AST Turbodryer; with Ecutec, Barcelona, Atritor is able to offer advanced air classifier solutions including development of the Cell Mill integral classifier; with PMT Jetmill, Austria, Atritor has beaten the market leaders, selling advanced Classifier Jet Mill technology


  • Also in partnership with PMT Jetmill GmbH, Atritor has produced an advanced pharmaceutical classifier jet mill - the Pharmill - currently in the prototype testing stage, and formed the joint venture company - Pharmill Technology Ltd


  • Business wise, Atritor will turn over around € 5m this year. We are about to ship a steroid micronising facility featuring 2 units in isolators worth € 840,000 for the Akzo pharmaceutical division. We are about to commission a €1m Cell Mill-Dryer-Classifier unit CM1250-IC for the Dutch division of a Japanese chemical company who previously used Hosokawa technology for their flame retardants and plastic stabilisers. We are still commissioning several Dryer-Pulveriser installations in China and about to ship a 20A Dryer-Pulveriser (biggest in our range) to Belgium for reclaimed Gypsum drying. Our diversity and global approach has contributed to this modest success


  • We employ 48 people in manufacturing, foundry, projects, spares, sales and administration here in Coventry. Coventry is just south of Birmingham - the 2nd largest city in England - and has been famous as the original home of Jaguar cars and it's association with Frank Whittle - the inventor of the aero jet engine