Metro New York concrete operators contend with land constraints like few peers across the country. Long Island City-based Nycon Ready Mix Inc. is no exception, and recently confronted yard space challenges and process-water management by upgrading to filter press equipment from Matec America, LLC.
The equipment has enabled the producer to eliminate the use of a settling pond to capture fines from slurry conveyed by a concrete reclaimer, run mainly to separate aggregate. Nycon officials had pegged settling pond cleaning and maintenance costs up to $100,000 per year.
Reclaimer slurry is now pumped to a Matec Acquae 400×400 20-plate filter press. On a typical day it extracts 16 to 30 tons of cement fines from 70 mixer loads’ wash out and returned material. The press nets highly filtered water with low suspended solids, along with sludge cakes that are best handled when moisture content is 15 percent or less. The 20 400 mm-square filters capture 1.6 to 2 tons/hour.
Matec Italia in Massa, Italy, www.matecitalia.com, is represented domestically by Matec America, Walnut Cove, N.C.; contact Salem Alameri, 270/841-9180; [email protected].