US

The new Aerosort NTRM removal system from Hauni took up the challenge posed by a whole range of nontobacco related materials (NTRM) in a cross industry test in the green leaf sector – and delivered a perfect performance in every way.
Find the proverbial needle in a haystack. In fact, find it one hundred times in succession during a series of exacting tests. This was the challenge facing the new Aerosort from Hauni in the latest cross industry test (CIT). And it passed with flying colors.

The wide ranging assessment was conducted at the Universal Leaf Tobacco Company in the US city of Nashville and the results were remarkable. The Aerosort’s innovative camera technology and air separator identified every imaginable type of nontobacco related material with an average hit rate of 85.6% and then removed the unwanted materials. In some cases, the actual efficiency achieved was even considerably higher than the average value.
In each CIT, the objective was to remove 10 x 10 specific foreign bodies that had been added to 50 kg of tobacco. These included CIT seeds designed to resemble feathers, plastic film, pieces of wood and erasers as well as particles of plastic, paper and aluminum foil. The new AEROSORT had to identify and remove them. The Aerosort 1800 also scored well in terms of its false detection rate – achieving a rate of 1.85%, which was below the pre-specified limit of 2% without rerun function. All the tests were performed using burley tobacco, which is considered a particularly demanding test material due to its comparatively low weight.
Later this summer, the Aerosort 1800 is due to be tested at Universal Leaf once again – this time with Virginia tobacco. After the new product’s highly promising debut performance, Hauni’s team of experts are convinced that they will be able to confirm the outstanding results achieved in spring. The reason for their confidence: in a previous test conducted at a European customer’s factory using Virginia tobacco at a throughput of nine tonnes of tobacco per hour, the Aerosort achieved an efficiency of 87% and a false detection rate of 1.85% without rerun function. Aerosort has already faced and passed its greatest challenge with the current CIT. Every stage of the complex test profile, which is defined by several companies in the tobacco manufacturing industry, is an endurance test in itself. In fact, finding a needle in a haystack is almost child’s play in comparison.