PROCESSING AIDS

For over 60 years, Dicalite has been engaged internationally in the manufacture and sale of diatomite filter aids and fillers. Emphasis on customer service has proven to be the most important driving force in the company’s ability to produce high performance filter aids. Diatomite has been used as a filter aid for nearly a century.

The ore is a soft, friable siliceous mineral. It is composed of the skeletons of microscopic plants deposited on the bottoms of oceans and lakes after and during the Miocene Age, from 100,000 to 15,000,000 years ago. Under the microscope the particles of diatomite show up in a variety of forms: symmetrical figures resembling disks, rods, cylinders and snowflakes. It is the shape factor combined with the rigidity of the particles that makes Dicalite diatomite such an excellent raw material for the production of superior filter aids.

Diatomaceous earth is an amorphous form of silica containing a small amount of microcrystalline material. Filter aids are processed at above 800 °C (1500 °F). Both calcined and flux-calcined diatomite filter aids are free of organic matter and are non-adsorptive. Dicalite diatomite filter aids offer outstanding performance from the finest to the coarsest grades. These materials meet all requirements for good filter aids. This enables them to meet the exacting clarity and flow-rate demands of industrial filtration. Even more important, the user can depend on consistency and uniformity load after load.

STOL® is the trade name for a naturally occurring siliceous volcanic rock called  perlite. The distinguishing feature of STOL® is that when heated above a suitable point in its softening range it expands up to twenty times its  original  volume.  In  high temperature  applications,  such as those encountered  in the iron-and-steel and foundry industries, the expansion of STOL® results  in  particles with large surface areas.

This expansion is also  accompanied  by  a  small  cooling  action.  These effects combine to coagulate slag, the unwanted by-product of metal smelting, and thereby form a viscous, toffee-like mass that can be effectively removed from the molten metal  interface. An added advantage of perlite in this application is that no objectionable smoke or noxious fumes are produced.

The Vitiben® Bentonite clarifying agent is designed to remove undesirable compounds from wine and juice. These compounds include phenolics, proteins, and tannins, which are present in the fruit and result from natural enzyme reaction during processing and aging. Undesirable compounds cause haze, browning reactions, off-flavours, post-bottling settling, and poor shelf life. Vitiben® absorbs and coagulates these undesirable substances so they can be easily filtered out during fining or clarification.

Filtraflo® is our range of milled expanded perlite filteraids which are produced in various grades. Perlite is chemically inert, completely sterile, non-toxic, non-flammable, does not impart taste, odour or colour, and does not degrade or alter chemically. These properties make Filtraflo® suitable for use in a wide variety of solid-liquid separation applications that includes wine, fruit juice, beer, pulp & paper manufacturers and the manufacturers of food products such as edible oils, glucose and sugar.

Genulite® is the trade name for a naturally occurring siliceous volcanic rock called perlite. The distinguishing feature of Genulite® is that when heated above a suitable point in its softening range it expands up to twenty times its original volume. Genulite® has many varied applications as detailed below: