Greetings and salutations Ahmed, from the "Frozen Eastern Wilderness",

I am unaware of a pnuematic system that can move efined sugar with out damaging the product-the pnuematic systems for grain are used for unground grains I believe-I have been away from the business for a while. As far as I know the time honored method is to still use a gathering bucket using a slusher hoist in the ships hold and a separate bucket is used to lift the product out of the ships hold to storage or transport on shore.

Salaam, Ims allah,

lzaharis ■

Dear Ahmed,

To answer your question, pneumatic conveying can be used to unload granular sugar from ships. You will need a vacuum type dilute phase conveying system with a suction nozzle. Sugar being hygroscopic, make sure that the conveying air does not condense in the conveying lines or in the feed bins. This can be done by several methods depending on ambient conditions. Another consideration for system design is attrition of sugar particles due to impact or friction in the conveying lines. Attrition is controlled by using low conveying velocities and special bends.

Regards,

Amrit T. Agarwal

Consulting Engineer

Pneumatic Conveying Consulting Services

Email: polypcc@aol.com

Ph and Fax: 304 346 5125 ■

Don't forget that the sugar dust generated is a fine hydrocarbon product & therefore an explosion risk if static charge is generated. ■

Dear Sir

In deed sugar dust is very explosive. If you need any assistance to this matter please do not hesitate to contact me. We have long-time experience in dust explosion design and consultancy.

Kind regards

Dr. Tarek Nasr

Scherr & Klimke AG

Ulm-Germany

Tel. 0049 731 9225-158

t.nasr@scherr-klimke.de ■