K-Tron

K-Tron International, Inc. is a New Jersey corporation founded in 1964 engaged in one principal business segment, which is material handling equipment and systems. Its has manufacturing facilities in the United States, Switzerland and the People's Republic of China, and its equipment is sold and serviced throughout the world.

K-Tron serves the bulk solids material handling markets through two separate business lines, which focus on feeding and pneumatic conveying equipment (the Process Group) and on size reduction equipment, conveying systems and screening equipment (the Size Reduction Group). K-Tron's material handling equipment is used in a wide variety of manufacturing and other industrial processes, particularly in the plastics, food, chemical, pharmaceutical, power generation, coal mining, pulp and paper and wood and forest products industries. The company designs, produces, markets and services this equipment, and it sells it both on a stand-alone basis and as part of larger systems that it designs and sell. Replacement parts are an important aspect of all of K-Tron's businesses, and they comprise a significant majority of the sales of the Size Reduction Group.

Process Group
K-Tron's Process Group designs, produces, markets, sells and services both feeders and pneumatic conveying equipment, and it markets and sells this equipment under two main brands: K-Tron Feeders and K-Tron Premier. The company also designs, produces, markets and sells a separate line of feeders and ancillary equipment for the domestic market in China under the brand name K-Tron Colormax.

K-Tron Feeders Brand
Feeders. The Process Group markets single and twin-screw feeders, belt feeders and vibratory feeders under the K-Tron Feeders brand. It offers these feeder types in a number of different designs, sizes and finishes to meet the requirements of a given material handling application and to assure compliance with applicable industry codes and specifications. In addition, these feeders are available in both a volumetric mode, where the flow of material is controlled by volume, and a gravimetric mode, where the flow of material is controlled either by weight or loss of weight over a defined time period. Gravimetric feeders, which represent the majority of K-Tron's feeding equipment sales, are typically used in premium applications where short-term accuracy in the feeding of raw materials is essential to produce a high-quality end product.

The Process Group also offers a unique type of feeder, which we refer to as the BSP or Bulk Solids Pump. The BSP feeder does not utilize the usual screws, belts or vibratory trays to convey material but instead relies upon positive displacement action to accurately feed free-flowing materials, offering uniform discharge, consistent volume and gentle handling.

In addition to feeders, K-Tron also produces mass flow meters which measure and control the flow of material from a storage vessel. These flow meters have no moving parts and therefore require little maintenance, and they do not need to be calibrated to a specific mass flow range.

All the K-Tron Feeders brand equipment models have been developed by its own internal research and development group.

K-Tron Premier Brand
Conveying Equipment. The Process Group markets a full line of pneumatic conveying equipment, including components such as loaders, blower packages, diverter valves, rotary valves, in-line filters and other ancillary equipment. These products, which are marketed under the K-Tron Premier brand, are offered in a number of different designs, sizes and finishes to meet the requirements of a given material handling application and to assure compliance with applicable industry codes and specifications. Products are sold stand-alone to customers and resellers, who then install them in one of their systems, or as part of customer and application-specific engineered systems that we design. These pneumatic conveying systems convey material by positive pressure where the material is blown to a storage vessel, or by negative pressure where the material is transferred by vacuum to a storage vessel. Among the applications for engineered systems are railcar and truck unloading systems, where high volumes of bulk solids are typically moved by positive pressure from railcars or trucks to intermediate storage containers, and intermediate storage-to-production line transfer systems, where bulk solids are typically transported by vacuum at lower volumes.

K-Tron Colormax Brand
The Process Group serves the domestic plastics compounding and injection molding markets in China through its Wuxi K-Tron Colormax Machinery Co., Ltd. (“Wuxi K-Tron Colormax”) subsidiary. Following the formation of that entity in 2007 and the purchase by it of certain assets from a privately owned Chinese company, K-Tron created the brand name K-Tron Colormax to market a line of volumetric and gravimetric feeders, pelletizers, screen changers and other equipment specifically targeted at domestic Chinese compounding and injection molding manufacturers. In 2008, the company added the pneumatic conveying product line from its discontinued Colormax Limited operations in the United Kingdom to the K-Tron Colormax product line in China.

Size Reduction Group
K-Tron's Size Reduction Group consists of U.S.-based Pennsylvania Crusher Corporation (“Penn Crusher”), Gundlach Equipment Corporation (“Gundlach”) and Jeffrey Rader Corporation (Jeffrey Rader). All theSize Reduction Group companies design, manufacture, market and sell size reduction equipment, such as hammermills, wood hogs and double roll crushers. This equipment is used to resize various materials to a given smaller size, and the principal industries served are the power generation, coal and minerals mining, pulp and paper and wood and forest products industries. Jeffrey Rader also provides the pulp and paper and biomass energy generation industries with screening equipment, conveying systems and other products, and it sells a feeder/delumper used by petrochemical companies in the production of polyethylene and polypropylene.

Penn Crusher Equipment
Penn Crusher manufactures size reduction and related equipment for the power generation industry to crush coal before it is used as fuel in the steam furnaces of coal-fired power plants, and it also serves other industries such as mining, quarrying and glass making.

The crushers most commonly sold by Penn Crusher are hammermills, in which the material is broken by impact from hammers and then scrubbed against a screen for desired size. Penn Crusher manufactures a number of different hammermill designs, such as granulators, that use rows of ring hammers to crush with a slow, positive rolling action, and other crushers such as Bradford breakers, in which the material is crushed by gravity impact only. Penn Crusher also manufactures its Mountaineer^TM Sizer which is used for primary or secondary crushing of coal and other non-metallic materials in mining operations. Crushers come in a wide variety of sizes and configurations, and each machine is built-to-order to meet the customer’s specifications.

Gundlach Equipment
Gundlach manufactures size reduction equipment for the coal mining industry, and its equipment is also used to crush coal and other minerals in coal-fired power stations, salt processing plants, fertilizer manufacturing facilities and other industrial applications.

The crushers most commonly sold by Gundlach are double roll crushers, in which the material is broken by compression resulting in minimal fines. Gundlach manufactures a large variety of double roll single-stage and two-stage crushers, the latter including a pre-crusher. Crusher rolls are designed with varying surface configurations tailored to the material and sizing requirements of each specific application. Another product sold by Gundlach is the Cage Paktor cage mill, in which the material is crushed by impact between one cage and shear plates or two counter-rotating cages and shear plates. Gundlach’s crushers come in a wide variety of sizes and configurations, and each machine is built-to-order to the customer’s specifications.

Jeffrey Rader Equipment
Jeffrey Rader produces wood and bark hogs, chip sizers, screening equipment, pneumatic conveying and mechanical conveying systems, storage/reclaim systems and other size reduction equipment and related items for use primarily in the pulp and paper, wood and forest products and biomass energy generation industries. Wood and bark hogs are used in the pulp and paper and wood and forest products industries to produce mulch, boiler fuel, chips for composite wood products and compost. A chip sizer is marketed to the pulp and paper industry to resize chips too large for efficient use in a pulp digester. Screening equipment, pneumatic and mechanical conveying systems and storage/reclaim systems are used to classify and handle biomass, wood chips and waste wood products, such as tree bark, primarily in the pulp and paper and biomass energy generation industries.

Jeffrey Rader also sells hammermills to the mining industry to resize chunks of coal, which come directly out of the mine, into smaller pieces as well as a line of electromechanical and vibratory feeders designed to feed bulk solid materials into processes primarily in the aggregates, coal, mineral, chemical and other industries. In addition, Jeffrey Rader manufactures a feeder/delumper used by manufacturers of polyethylene and polypropylene.

World Headquarters
K-Tron International, Inc.
Routes 55 & 553
PO Box 888
Pitman, New Jersey USA 08071-0888
Phone (856) 589-0500
Fax (856) 582-7968

Visit the K-Tron Web site.