News

 International course “Fundamentals and new developments in feed-compounding technology”

22 participants from different countries, e.g. Russia, Saudi Arabia, Norway and the Netherlands gathered at the Research Institute or Feed Technology in Braunschweig from June, 7th to 11th 2010 in order to take part in the international course “Fundamentals and new developments in feed-compounding technology”.

On the basis of fundamentals and practical experiences, the aim of this course was the updating, extension and refreshment of required knowledge for an economic and safe compound-feed production.

The programme of the course was as variegated as the origin of the participants: It contained legal aspects of feed-compounding technology, basis processes like milling and mixing and dust explosion protection.

Great importance was attached to deepen the presented subjects by several practical trainings in the pilot plant station of the Research Institute. There, the participants became active in milling, mixing, pelleting and expanding.

At the end of the course, all participants had to pass a written test to proof the acquired knowledge in feed-compounding technology. Almost everybody passed the test with distribution.

In summary, the international course has been an interesting experience for the attendants as well as for the staff of the IFF Research Institute.



Workshop „Milling“

Milling or grinding at present is one of the most discussed processing steps in animal feed manufacturing. For that reason, the Research Institute of Feed Technology organized a workshop on this topic, which took place on June, 17th in Braunschweig.

All in all, 37 really interested participants, coming from national and international compound-feed industry as well as from the plant and machinery engineering, deepened their knowledge by active listening to the great lectures of the 10 speakers and could also discuss the latest developments.

During the workshop, new and further developments of milling and grinding equipment have been presented. Also the technological and nutritional-physiological consequences which result from different particle size distributions have been discussed. Speakers had also elaborated on topics such as power consumption, range of application, and the desired and achievable feed structures.

Due to the involvement of all participants and lecturers, the workshop “Milling” was a real success.

Colloquium “Discovering risks – Making use of potential” on 5 May 2010

Following the general meeting of the IFF members, a public colloquium took place in the afternoon of 5 May at the Frickenmühle. Dr. Feil welcomed the 40 participants as well as the speakers and was glad about the active interest.

7 speakers of research, economy and education gave lectures.

We prepared abstracts of these lectures as newsletter to our members in German language.

Advanced Course "Compound-feed production" from 15 to 19 March 2010                        

Practical course “Pelleting of compound feed” on 26 and 27 January 2010

This year’s training course “Pelleting of compound feed” received a very good resonance. It took place on 26 and 27 January at the Research Institute of Feed Technology. 39 participants from the national and international feed and machine industry took part in order to deepen their knowledge in pelleting.

As a multitude of influencing factors have to be taken into consideration at pelleting, this course contained the topics pressability and their influence, steam generation and steam quality, conditioning, operation technique, control of pellet quality, operation parameters for the pellet mill, energy saving potentials in the production process, wear and service times, cooling of pellets, gap adjustment and pellet mill steering, material changes and stability of additives at pelleting. Also the topic pelleting of renewable raw materials was dealt with.

Another focus of the course was the practical part in which the influence could be worked out especially by matrix geometry on the pelleting result and product quality by the participants, split in small groups to 5 persons, at different measuring places on the basis of specific power demand and pellet stability.

Mrs. Olivera Djuragic, research assistant at the Institute for Food Technology, Research Center for Feed and Animal Products, Novi Sad, visited IFF

Her short review

As a part of the project “FEED-TO-FOOD” (FP7-REGPOT-2007-3 "Reinforcement of Feed to Food Research Center at Institute for Food Technology of the University of Novi Sad") which includes the exchange of research experience, the first longer visit to IFF was from August 16^th to September 11^th. In the period of the visit, I was introduced with the works and almost all activities of the institute, including laboratory work and some pilot plant work which are carried out under current projects. I felt all the time as a member of the collective because I had opportunity to be present at all institute meetings concerning work at last and future weeks. Also I got an opportunity to present my research work as well as the work of my institute, particularly the department of Feed and Animal Products. All the time, we discussed about possibilities of further cooperation and possible results which can be published in some journals to get references for future European projects. Main topics were methods used in determination of homogeneity and working accuracy, as well as about some investigations in the area of feed pelleting process and liquid addition. We also talked about the contribution in the current FP7 proposal in area of feed safety and quality and made some comments and suggestions. In the period of the stay, I visited the Friedrich Loeffler Institute (FLI), their facilities and introduced their field of research and also AGRAVIS, local feed producer, who is a part of the Raiffeisen Company. A one-day visit to Hanover Messe on September 8^th was aimed to meeting with Dr. Steinkamp from the Deutsches Institut für Lebensmitteltechnik (DIL) and after discussion we established a good base for future cooperation.  

Finally, I can say that my visit was successful and fruitful and that our two institutes can do more in future in the field of feed technology not only as a part of the project “FEED-TO-FOOD” but in the other kind of projects.

Four young researchers from Novi-Sad (Serbia) visited IFF

Within the project FP7-REGPOT-2007-3 "Reinforcement of Feed to Food Research Center at Institute for Food Technology of the University of Novi Sad" four young researchers visited the Research Institute of Feed Technology of IFF. A short summay of the 14-day stay as well as impressions and experiences of the young scientists are compiled as follows: 

With this article we would like to share our impressions about IFF Institute in Braunschweig. We are Bojana Kokic, Radmilo Colovic, Djuro Vukmirovic and Dusica Ivanov, young researchers from Institute for Food Technology in Novi Sad, Serbia, department for Animal Products and Feed Technology. IFF Institute is our associate institute on FEED-TO-FOOD FP7 project, funded by European Commission.

The reason for this two week visit was to participate on basic course “Fundamentals and new developments in feed-compounding technology“, but also introducing with all equipment and physical analysis that are conducted on IFF Institute. The least that we can say is that this visit was useful and that it fulfilled all our expectations.

The course was very well organized. The lectures were focused on practical issues and supported by scientific data that was originally from IFF experiments. We also got some new information about legislations and EU laws, which will help us to understand functioning of European Union better. The lecturers had great knowledge in their areas and they were ready to answer on all of participants´ questions.  

In second week we were introduced with all process equipment, such as extruders, expanders, pellet machines, various types of mills, etc. That was especially interesting for us because of the fact that we have the same devices in our pilot plant, and that we are planning cooperation on same frame work projects in future.

We were also shown physical laboratory equipment and methods which will help us to improve our laboratory and to implement some new analysis. A lot of literature and scientific papers that we also got would show us in which direction our experiments should proceed.

At the end, we could not forget visits to the “Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut (FLI)”, “Burg Warberg”, “Feed Mill Agravis Braunschweig”, “DMSB” International Technical School for Process Construction and Process Engineering, “MEGA Haldensleben” and “Schaumann Eilsleben”. Not less important are contacts that we made with a lot of our colleagues from areas related to feed production.

We would like to express our gratitude to our hosts for hospitality and well organised visit to Braunschweig and we are inviting them to visit our institute!

Substance data base on the dust-formation behaviour of single feeds, additives and feed mixtures

In the frame of the research project “Explosion hazards”, that was made possible with funding from the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology via the German Federation of Industrial Cooperative Research Associations “Otto von Guericke” e.V. (AiF), a material data base was developed in which investigation results are made available on the dust-formation behaviour under different conditions on basis of the relevant identification of the substances used in the grain cultivation and feed industry.

The selection of the materials are geared to the already available data base (BIA GESTIS-STAUB-EX data base, BGIA - BG-Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) and is a supplementation to the fire and explosion characteristics.

The data base is available with immediate effect and can be supplemented dynamically.