I Once met a guy
Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 6:51 am
True Story:
I worked in the field of particle size reduction (i.e. flour mills, powdered sugar, pigments, chemicals etc.) It is a known FACT that fine particle size distributions require exponential increases in horsepower impacted on the particle. Horsepower imparts large amounts of heat to the particle undergoing size reduction thus it is extremely difficult to grind heat sensitive materials to very fine distributions because ... well... absent nitrogen or CO2,,,, they melt. That is a fact.
Part B:
Very fine particle size distributions (avg. distribution < 5 micron) for relatively soft materials on the Mohs(3 or 4) scale require application of a jet mill which is a high pressure mill which essentially drives particles into one another thus accomplishing the reduction/attrition. Beyond 3 or 4 on the Mohs scale and you are talking about some serious Mega Engineering equipment (ie Combustion Engineering type equipment) to make little stuff out of bigger stuff.
Part C:
Jet mills require huge compressor capacity, ie huge horsepower, huge airflow, huge dust collection/pollution control for relatively low outputs. The mills work but they are very expensive to purchase, operate, and maintain. (See Hosokawa Beepex Alpine for examples) So the product has to be very dear.
Part D:
I get a call from a guy from Israel and he is going to be in the US to meet with companies involved in size reduction regarding a new mill design which can achieve unknown achievments in size reduction efficiency. This guy claims he can achieve throughut rates and particle distributions at some one half the horsepower requirements of all existing technology. This guy comes to Chicago and visits with us. And .....
Part E:
He sits down with me and has a bunch of particle size distributions showing very fine reductions with low airflow requirements. He has a bunch of drawings "indicating" the operation of the mill. He has a business proposition where we would build the mill for him, (he would own it), we would find an end user and license the application of the mill. We would be responsible for the performance, installation and commissioning of the equipment and we would be paid a piece work rate (per/lb) by the end user and he would be paid a guaranteed license fee by the firm I worked for, regardless of the machines performance.
Part F:
This guy flunked the "are you for real test".
Laughed him out of the office
The technology could not be demonstrated, could not be duplicated, had never been witnessed and was frankly without any merit what so ever.
Had the above held any water, the business model was so far out that NO ONE in their right mind would have bit on such a magic fairy dust fantasy.
Unless you bought into RSE!
Cheers
I remain:
Leemar, Admiral Galactic Invasion Force and Astro's best friend
I worked in the field of particle size reduction (i.e. flour mills, powdered sugar, pigments, chemicals etc.) It is a known FACT that fine particle size distributions require exponential increases in horsepower impacted on the particle. Horsepower imparts large amounts of heat to the particle undergoing size reduction thus it is extremely difficult to grind heat sensitive materials to very fine distributions because ... well... absent nitrogen or CO2,,,, they melt. That is a fact.
Part B:
Very fine particle size distributions (avg. distribution < 5 micron) for relatively soft materials on the Mohs(3 or 4) scale require application of a jet mill which is a high pressure mill which essentially drives particles into one another thus accomplishing the reduction/attrition. Beyond 3 or 4 on the Mohs scale and you are talking about some serious Mega Engineering equipment (ie Combustion Engineering type equipment) to make little stuff out of bigger stuff.
Part C:
Jet mills require huge compressor capacity, ie huge horsepower, huge airflow, huge dust collection/pollution control for relatively low outputs. The mills work but they are very expensive to purchase, operate, and maintain. (See Hosokawa Beepex Alpine for examples) So the product has to be very dear.
Part D:
I get a call from a guy from Israel and he is going to be in the US to meet with companies involved in size reduction regarding a new mill design which can achieve unknown achievments in size reduction efficiency. This guy claims he can achieve throughut rates and particle distributions at some one half the horsepower requirements of all existing technology. This guy comes to Chicago and visits with us. And .....
Part E:
He sits down with me and has a bunch of particle size distributions showing very fine reductions with low airflow requirements. He has a bunch of drawings "indicating" the operation of the mill. He has a business proposition where we would build the mill for him, (he would own it), we would find an end user and license the application of the mill. We would be responsible for the performance, installation and commissioning of the equipment and we would be paid a piece work rate (per/lb) by the end user and he would be paid a guaranteed license fee by the firm I worked for, regardless of the machines performance.
Part F:
This guy flunked the "are you for real test".
Laughed him out of the office
The technology could not be demonstrated, could not be duplicated, had never been witnessed and was frankly without any merit what so ever.
Had the above held any water, the business model was so far out that NO ONE in their right mind would have bit on such a magic fairy dust fantasy.
Unless you bought into RSE!
Cheers
I remain:
Leemar, Admiral Galactic Invasion Force and Astro's best friend
"what a wonderful world it will be." 