CDE demos equipment at North Carolina quarry

CDE USA recently completed a series of demonstration events at Emery Pit, a GS Materials quarry in Jackson Springs, N.C.

The three-day event was held June 3 to June 5 and showcased a CDE sand and gravel washing plant that has been in operation there since late 2013. It processes 270 tph and produces a range of aggregates, concrete sands and golf sands that meet United States Golf Association (USGA) specifications.

The event was the company’s first North America demonstration but it won’t be the last, says Joel Prince, general manager for CDE in North America.

“The launch of our M4500 wash plant at ConExpo-Con/Agg was so successful that we wanted to ensure that we were able to maintain the momentum and demonstrate our equipment in action,” he says. “This format is one that CDE has tried and tested across the world with events having taken place in Europe, Latin America, Australia and Russia in recent months. This was the first North America demonstration event but it is something that we will be repeating in the months and years ahead.”

Prince says more than 70 companies registered to come see the equipment in action. Attendees were from North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, New York, Minnesota, California, Michigan and Wisconsin.

“The numbers in attendance at the event highlight the level of interest in new technology for the washing and classification market in North America,” he says. “We spent a lot of time building our product portfolio to meet the requirements of the market and believe we are bringing something new and exciting for operators to allow them to maximise process efficiency, reduce operational costs and diversify their sand and aggregate product portfolio into higher value applications.”

The Emery Pit quarry uses the CDE’s M3500 mobile wash plant, AggMax portable logwasher, EvoWash CFCU golf sand plant and the AquaCycle thickener.

The M3500 integrates feeding, screening, sand washing and stacking onto a single chassis. It produces a concrete sand and delivers aggregates to the AggMax portable logwasher for scrubbing – the feed material contains a lot of clay and the attrition from the logwasher is very effective at breaking down the clay and allowing for the production of clean, washed gravel with a range of construction applications, Prince says.

The EvoWash CFCU golf sand plant is generating two specifications of golf sand for use at the golf courses near the site. “A number of the companies involved in the supply of golf sands to these courses visited Emery Pit to see the plant in action,” says Prince. “We see a great deal of potential for future deployment of these systems across North America.”

The AquaCycle thickener allows for approximately 90 percent of the water used to feed the wash plant to be recycled, which means less fresh water is needed. Prince says the system has enabled GS Materials to reduce the amount of space required for settling ponds; now, there’s only one on site instead of five.

The event gave CDE the opportunity to showcase the small footprint of its modular equipment. CDE has integrated several processes onto a single chassis to reduce the space required on site to accommodate the plant, Prince says.

Also generating interest is the company’s focus on maximizing process efficiency and Transfer Point Technology. In light of rising fuel costs, the use of electric power – which the CDE has been offering for more than 20 years – is attracting attention. Water recycling technology within washing and classification plants is also a draw.

“The key driver for the interest we have seen in our technology is the potential for an improvement in the quality of the final sand and aggregate products – which obviously leads to an increase in value,” Prince says. “By efficiently removing unwanted fines and clay contamination, as well as organics, we are producing a consistent final product [that] attracts the highest commercial value.”