Green coffee handling and roasting manufacturer Ima Coffee Petroncini tailors sustainable solutions to its customers for reception, storage, and handling systems across the roasting process.

Designed to increase business continuity and efficiency while avoiding downtime, Ima Coffee Petroncini applies ongoing research with its 100-year history to create new technologies and engineering solutions in green coffee reception and processing.

Ima Coffee Petroncini believes that if its customers consider their plant capacity and ways they can optimise handling operations more, they can be better placed to decide how they want to receive and treat raw coffee at their facilities.

Cosimo Vitale, Head of Engineering at IMA Coffee Petroncini says, “A suitable storaging solution should consider the number of coffee origins that will be used during production and the desired storage time, be it in storaging silos or in the warehouse. The above considerations always depend on the availability of space.”

Cosimo adds that tailored engineering solutions should combine its client’s logistical needs and production expectations, in line with the available space and budget.

Citing one example, IMA Coffee Petroncini designed and created a green coffee processing plant with a reception station, handling system, and chain conveyers for a leading coffee processing company.

“Responding to the customer’s need to store the coffee in a new section of the plant, Petroncini provided a reliable and efficient solution for rapid big bag discharging. Thanks to a special engineering solution, big bags can be placed on a special cutting device with knives, so that the coffee can be quickly discharged into a hopper combined with a weighing system,” says Cosimo.

The new reception station saw an increased ability to discharge up to 18 tonnes per hour of green bags, while maintaining the safety of workers unloading the bags.

Cosimo adds that the new hopper has been specifically designed for rapid big-bag discharging, coming equipped with the latest aspiration system for receiving green coffee in large bags.

“The integrated dust extraction system under the walkable grid optimises aspiration efficiency by exploiting all of the available surface. The air flow can be directed through suitable piping to the main dust filtering system,” Cosimo says.

More than 100 modular block silos were installed increasing the facilities total capacity to 1360 tonnes alongside special valves for precise product dosing.

Ima Coffee Petroncini says it is these processing plants and conveying equipment that links the processes together into an efficient production unit.

“Even if conveying in itself does not add value to the coffee, an effective conveyance system plays a critical role in the overall energy efficiency of the operations, avoiding any downtime and ultimately optimising productivity,” the company states.

Cosimo recalls how the limited space and layout restrictions of this client meant that Ima Coffee Petroncini’s pressure pneumatic conveyor was the most flexible way for loading and receiving bags above the silos. This avoided the existing equipment or need to facility expansion.

These mechanical chain conveyers are 40 metres in length and able to handle up to 18 tonnes per hour. Through this system, Ima Coffee Petroncini increased the accuracy and hygiene practices of its clients when releasing the beans into the modular squared silos.

“The modular shape allows for total optimisation of the vertical space and also makes it possible to rapidly expand the storaging capacity” says Cosimo.

“The optimisation of space was a very important factor right from the beginning of the engineering studies, and the solution applied to the dosing process was the cornerstone of the entire project.”

Ima Coffee Petroncini’s Line-S dosing devices ensured there was greater energy and cost savings for the facilities layout. This solution is designed to work across the entire green bean unloading process, aiding with product loading, dosing and conveying with the aid of sensor driven system control.

“Due to its smaller space footprint compared to other common valves, the use of LINE-S dosing valves meant a lot of vertical space could be saved, so that it was possible to gain 0.5 metres in height for each silo, corresponding to an additional storaging capacity of 136 tonnes,” says Cosimo.

For more information, visit www.coffee.ima.it