Agenda - 06-02-1997 - 5c - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

b lutecii to operate on Chant-.)ion oanw had a production version of Liquick property and in return zl-e waste scream i_ :hat was equal in perforr,ante to he :on,- reoUced. Cellutech's mar sceci.n is benetic• pony's original experimental product. For spills over in_, from a timely endorsement by the 'Min- By this time. the company had invested a nesota Department of Transportation million dollars in plant and equipment,and water, CellLltech (DOT). In 1995, just as Cellutech was be- another significant infusion of capital was ginning to produce Liquick on a commercial needed to market Liquick. and ;ear Cel has developed scale. the Minnesoca DOT was seeking a so- lutech up to a proticnble enterprise. `The hydrophobic lution to its industrial absorbent disposal company had gone four years, from 1991 to , problem.The Minnesota DOT has 1.11 sites, 1995, without volume production, and the all of which have automobiles and machin- initial investors lost interest."says Perry."I p roduct designed ery to maintain. The standard clay ab- believed the potential market for this prod- t0 s0ak Lip oil, but sorbent cannot be burned for energy recov- uct was substantial,so I agreed to purchase cry. and new regulations forbid landfilling the company from the original investors." not water. without expensive testing. Therefore. the He describes the purchase price as a"mod- Department advertised for alternatives to est sum,with the promise of future rewards go through an evaluation process. Seventy-si.x absorbent products were sub- micted by manufacturers. After prelimi- nary analysis, that group was whittled down to 22 products for more extensive test- ing. In an entirely performance-based eval- uation(recycled content was not taken into consideration), Cellutech performed in the WINDROWS top Five products, says Kim Chambers, an environmental engineer with the i MAKES CONSISTENT HOMOGENOUS MIX— show DOT. "That gives us the credi bility lity to to � show customers that we do have a superior REDUCES ODORS AND PROMOTES MAXIMUM product,"says Perry."Now we are talking to BIOLOGICAL ACTIVITY WITHIN WINDROWS, major oil companies and industry and building a market base: '96 was the first STACKS, VESSELS AND PROCESS SYSTEMS. year that we began serious production lev- els and marketing." Getting to this point has been an arduous : and capital intensive process. Liquick was - invented by Ernest Schaefer during the mid- _ q �„�--- dle to late 1980s, and with a group of in- - �-�' �( vestors he formed Schaefer Associates in = 1991 with the intention of commercial-scale - production. "The first step for the company . was to test the patent ideas on a larger scale," says Perry. :after talking to several paper companies,the firm ended up making an agreement with Champion. Cellutech was created as a wholly owned subsidiary of Schaefer Associates." Perry, an engineer with a strong interest in marketing,joined the company in 1992. Early on, there was nothing to market, and so his engineering skills were in demand. The company began ordering equipment at the start of 1993, and the bulk of the year was spent setting up the plant. 'In 1994,we were able to performance-test - produ,::s chat were created on an experi- mental basis,"he says. we found that gear- in g,_p from experimental products to manu- SSI self-pr0peUed miter does it ac.uring teas more difficult than we all. This "-in-1 composting tool : anticipated."The problem was that the qual- mixes,Mauls and windrows— _ — ity of the sludge output from the mill varies according to what kind of paper they are Dn"fie-°O• Blends sludge, 1)IIle, �tustw �•ttgu�s-e'• mixing- making, how efficiently the plant is running yard waste, industrial byproducts and•.whether they are adding other wastes— and aeration agents. It saves time Such as incinerator fly ash—to the sludge. and labor—mixes in j t0 b The performance of the feedstock varies day minutes N1ixer is essential for -YSTims. Nk :o da%. and even hour to hour, Perry says. efficient Conit�Stlr1Q IIl row, Stack 1125 Starr AVG. .:We needed to put in a system to let us take Po Eau C:aire,wt$4703 in varied input and get a constant output," and in-vessel systems. Send for (T15)L-05-3151 phone i1a explains. 'The total redesign of the facil- literature. (715)835-es25 faX icy cost several hundred thousand dollars and another year." Early in 1995, the com- Ba c-'r.:. NowE7-iCF-*t 1996 :313