ROTOScrew
The Clyde ROTOScrew is a heavy-duty, precision solids feeding and injection system for coarse granular and irregularly shaped waste materials, designed to deliver highly accurate, consistently controlled batch or continuous injection directly into a variety of industrial processes.
View Process VideosHigh-Integrity Injection of Difficult Fuels and Bulk Materials
Originally developed for demanding fuel injection applications in heavy industrial sectors, the Clyde ROTOScrew has evolved into a proven technology for handling difficult fuels and challenging bulk materials.
The ROTOScrew is a heavy-duty mechanical feeding and injection system designed to accurately and reliably inject solid materials into pressurised industrial processes, either continuously or in batches.
Its robust auger-based design allows the system to handle irregular, fibrous, coarse or heterogeneous materials that are often difficult or impossible to feed using conventional rotary valves or screw feeders.
Combined with Clyde's Dome Valve isolation technology and pressure-resistant sealing systems, the ROTOScrew provides stable, controlled material injection into furnaces, reactors, gasifiers, boilers, kilns, and metallurgical processes.
ROTOScrew systems can inject materials over distances of up to 500 metres and into processes operating at pressures up to 30 barg, depending on application conditions.
Designed for Demanding Process Injection Applications
Process injection involves controlled feeding of solid materials into a live industrial process, often operating under elevated pressure and temperature. Unlike standard pneumatic conveying systems, injection equipment must overcome process backpressure while maintaining stable, continuous and accurate feed rates.
Injection systems must also:
- Prevent backflow from the process
- Maintain stable and repeatable feed control
- Operate reliably at elevated pressures and temperatures
- Integrate seamlessly with plant control systems
- Deliver long-term reliability in demanding environments
The Clyde ROTOScrew has been specifically engineered to meet these requirements. Its heavy-duty screw design, combined with robust sealing arrangements and integrated Dome Valve isolation, ensures reliable injection into pressurised industrial processes operating at pressures of up to 30 barg.
Reliable Performance in Demanding Injection Applications
Key Performance Capabilities:
- Injection Accuracy: 0.5 – 2% with load cells (5–10% without)
- Injection Distance: Up to 500 m
- Process Pressure: Up to 30 barg
- Response Rate: Up to 1.5 tph per second
- Operating Mode: Continuous or batch injection
High injection accuracy can be achieved when the system is fitted with load cells and a suitable weigh controller, enabling precise control of fuel or material injection into the process.
Key Features
- Heavy-duty auger design: Handles coarse, fibrous and irregular materials
- Integrated Dome Valve isolation: Fast-closing pressure-tight material cut-off
- Pressure-balanced shaft sealing: Reliable sealing in pressurised processes
- Quick-change bearing and seal cartridges: Simplify maintenance and reduce downtime
- Heavy-duty gearbox: Long operational life with high reliability
- ATEX-rated design: Suitable for explosive dust environments
- Pressure-resistant construction: Designed for demanding industrial processes
The integrated Dome Valve sealing system provides a reliable bulk material cut-off with a pressure-tight inflatable seal, ensuring safe operation in high-pressure applications.
Why Use a ROTOScrew for Process Injection?
Many conventional feeding technologies struggle to handle irregular fuels, recycled materials, or heterogeneous bulk solids.
Materials such as biomass, shredded plastics, electronic scrap or alternative fuels can cause:
- Bridging and flow interruptions
- Material wrapping or tangling
- Poor pressure sealing
- Inconsistent feeding
- Excessive wear and maintenance
The Clyde ROTOScrew has been specifically developed to overcome these challenges.
Its heavy-duty auger design, combined with pressure-resistant sealing and Dome Valve isolation, allows reliable feeding of difficult materials into pressurised industrial processes.
The result is stable injection, high availability and minimal maintenance, even in demanding industrial environments.
Materials Conventional Feeders Struggle to Handle
Modern industrial processes increasingly require the handling of recycled, fibrous or irregular materials. These materials can cause serious operational challenges for conventional feeding technologies.
The Clyde ROTOScrew has been engineered to handle these difficult materials reliably:
- Electronic Scrap (E-Scrap): Metallurgical recovery and smelting
- Woody Biomass: Biomass energy and gasification
- Shredded Plastics: Chemical recycling and gasification
- Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF): Cement kilns and energy recovery
- Solid Recovered Fuel (SRF): Industrial combustion systems
- Pulverised Coal: Power generation
- Copper Concentrate: Non-ferrous smelting
- Limestone and Fluxes: Iron and steel processes
These materials often contain fibres, irregular particle shapes, variable densities or large particle sizes, making robust feeding technology essential.
Typical High-Temperature Process Applications
ROTOScrew injection systems are used across a wide range of heavy industrial processes:
- Smelters and converters: Ores, fluxes, metallurgical dusts and electronic scrap
- Gasification plants: Woody biomass, plastics and waste feedstocks
- Green steelmaking processes: Iron ore and auxiliary materials
- High-temperature reactors: Additives and sorbents
- Combustion systems: Pulverised coal, biomass and alternative fuels
These processes often operate under significant pressure and temperature conditions, making reliable injection technology essential for stable plant operation.
Part of the Clyde Process Injection Portfolio
The ROTOScrew forms part of Clyde Pneumatic Conveying's advanced process injection technologies, which are designed to safely and reliably feed materials into pressurised industrial processes.
These technologies support modern industries, including:
- Green steel production
- Coal to biomass conversions in power generation
- Gasification of biomass and recycled plastics
- Metallurgical processing
With decades of experience in solids handling and injection technologies, Clyde provides complete solutions from feeding equipment through to process integration and lifecycle support.
