Saiccor - The First 50 Years 5.8 MB - Sappi

The Cantacuzene Period (1952–1965)
two draughtsman from Courtaulds� Giorgio Natali and his project
construction team put the plant together rapidly and the first bales
were made on 11 August 1958� By the end of September the plant
was producing 12 t/d and was eventually pushed to 35 t/d� John
Grew, who had been loaned to Saiccor by Courtaulds, carried out
much of the original work on the pilot plant� He was ably assisted by
Marcello Malpiedi, who later supervised the running of the large
second line (100 t/d)� Both Grew and Malpiedi took up positions at
Usutu�
Malpiedi, a graduate (Perito Chimico Industriale), was engaged by
SNIA (on behalf of Saiccor) in September 1954, and transferred to
Saiccor as a Shift Superintendent in June 1955� In December 1958 he
was promoted to Assistant Development Manager, where he was
fully engaged on developing the flock plant� Marcello moved to Usutu
in 1961, and then went to Courtaulds in Coventry in 1968� In 1978
he went to Italy in an attempt to sell Saiccor pulp, the first time sales
were attempted outside of Courtaulds, but it turned out in the end
that no pulp was available for external sales� In 1987, Marcello moved
to Hong Kong as a foundation member of SPT (Specialty Pulp Trading)
to sell Saiccor and Usutu pulp� He retired in 1993 but joined the Saiccor
Board in September 1993�
Based on the success of the pilot plant, Saiccor started extension
scheme No 2, a full-scale flock plant for 100 t/d using a 20A atritor,
which started on 15 March 1960�
Also based on the success of the pilot plant, Courtaulds decided to
use the system in the new pulp mill they were planning to build in
Swaziland (Usutu)� They also took out a patent for the process,
aiming to sell relatively inexpensive drying plants to small pulp mills
close to forests� The sales campaign was unsuccessful, even when
Courtaulds tried to market the process with Sunds in the early 1980s�
Only Saiccor and Usutu ever used the process� Saiccor eventually
achieved over 500 t/d flock pulp in 1979, but made its last flock bale
on 17 January 1995� Because of the patent, the flock plant was for
many years ‘top secret’� So much so, that when Ted Beesley joined
Saiccor as a chemical engineer in the Development department in
1960 he was not allowed to go into the flock plant�
The heart of the process, and the reason for the patent, was the
atritor in which the pulp was ‘fluffed’ and exposed to hot air (450-
500 °C)� An atritor was a coal crusher, made by Alfred Herbert of
Coventry, which had a rotating disc with cast iron pegs and hammers
attached to it� It was not entirely suitable for the pulping process
because if anything hard went inside, it would chip a peg, the chip
from the peg would chip another, and so on, so that within seconds
the innards would be smashed into small pieces� The first atritor
smash at Saiccor occurred on 24 November 1958� Many others
followed throughout the history of the flock plant�
33
Marcello Malpiedi