Agricultural and other bulk minerals, in this context, encompass major material flows that drive food systems, energy markets and resource-recovery economies. Generally, such material needs to be treated gently (fragile/sensitive), is low-abrasion and may also face some form of contamination risk.

Grains and food-products underpin global nutrition and feed systems. Biomass - agricultural residues, forestry by-products and organic waste - serves as a growing feedstock for renewable energy and industrial uses. Domestic waste or Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) is increasingly treated as both a material liability and a resource opportunity in circular economy models. Together, these bulk flows are not only fundamental to daily life (food, heat, fuel, materials) but are also strategic in meeting sustainability, decarbonization and global resource-efficiency goals.

As TAKRAF Group, we can assist with various equipment solutions, leveraging our two leading global product brands, TAKRAF and DELKOR.

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• Conveyors & Feeders (employed across the entire value chain)
  • Conveyors – Note: All conveyor types, from regular belt to tube (pipe) or even overland conveyors, with or without advanced Gearless Conveyor Drive (GCD) technologies – in fact, TAKRAF is currently the only Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) with GCD references in operation.
  • Feeders (including apron, belt)
     
• Dewatering & Sedimentation:
  • Thickeners & clarifiers
  • Filter presses
  • Belt filters
     
• Product Handling:
  • Stackers
  • Reclaimers (all types)
  • Combined stacker/reclaimers
  • Wagon/truck loading (loadouts)
  • Wagon unloading (tipplers)
  • Ship/barge loaders
  • Ship/barge unloaders
     
• Rotary Dryers & Coolers:
  • Roto-Louvre®
  • Roto-Shell™
  • Roto-Tube 

If you would like to know more about our rotary dryer & cooler offerings, please reach out to us directly on info@takraf.com.

In 2021, TAKRAF delivered four portal scraper reclaimers forming an integral part of the materials handling and feeding system for a new multi-commodity power plant in Japan.

This advanced new plant, fired by a combination of woodchips and/or thermal coal, is fed material via TAKRAF Scraper Reclaimers located within the multi-commodity warehouse. The warehouse is divided into two sites (North and South), with the reclaiming system able to convey material from one warehouse to the other. This means that with this flexibility, the system can be used to restore or, if required, even mix material. Due to the redundancy required - two reclaimers being required to work on the same rail in the same warehouse - a dedicated safety and anti-collision system was implemented and extensively tested. 

Each reclaimer was designed with a capacity of 1,100 t/h, with each machine boasting a rail gauge of 52 m and a double-boom system (main and auxiliary boom in line), resulting in state-of-the-art machines and some of the largest built. An interesting feature of each machine is that each has a dedicated platform to carry a small bulldozer, which it can drop off at any location along the stockpile for cleaning purposes. 

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Global grain production remains the backbone of food security, with world grain output measured in billions of tons each year. According to the International Grains Council (IGC), the forecast for 2025/26 is expected to reach ~2.4-billion-tons). This vast scale is driven by staple crops (wheat, corn/maize, rice) used for food, animal feed and bio-industrial products.

Grains and food-products form the tangible base of global livelihoods, trade flows and national-food-security policies and their massive bulk volumes mean logistics, storage, processing and export infrastructure are critical.

Biomass - agricultural residues, dedicated energy crops, wood/forestry by-products and even organic waste - represents a major bulk material stream with growing relevance, both in terms of sustainability initiatives as well as investments and money flows. 

Biomass offers a renewable alternative to fossil fuels and is integral to biomass-to-energy, biochemicals and circular-economy supply chains. It links agriculture production with energy/industrial use, creating synergies across sectors.

Domestic waste or Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) is one of the largest volume material streams globally and is increasingly treated as both a challenge and an opportunity. According to the Organisation for Economic Co‑operation & Development (OECD), global MSW generation reached ~2.1 billion tons in 2023 and is projected to approach ~3.8 billion tons per annum by 2050 without intervention. 

Waste is not just a disposal problem, but it is also a bulk feedstock for materials recovery, energy-from-waste, circular-economy initiatives and landfill diversion. However, waste does present numerous challenges, which include: 

• Collection and management systems: Many low- and middle-income countries lack proper collection and treatment.
• Material recovery and recycling: Recycling rates globally are low.
• Infrastructure and regulation: Various responsibility frameworks, from smart collection to sorting systems, waste-to-energy and such, are required.
• Environmental and health impacts: MSW creates methane, land pollution, plastic leakage into oceans and various public-health risks.
• Bulk material streams complexity: The heterogeneity and scale make treatment logistics and material-separation challenging.

• Bulk volumes: Since all these flows (grains, biomass, waste) involve bulk volumes, infrastructure and logistics dominate their viability. As such, TAKRAF’s global experience in delivering efficient and reliable handling equipment comes to the fore and can really make the difference. Key requirements include rail/road/port networks, storage and silos (for grains), pelletization or feedstock logistics (for biomass) and collection/sorting/treatment systems (for waste).
• Sustainability and circular-economy: Using crop residues as biomass feedstock, recovering materials from MSW as secondary raw-materials, integrating agricultural outputs into industrial value-chains and reducing the environmental footprint of bulk-material flows.
• Policy and standards enabled: Investment in processing, supporting of efficient logistics, regulation of waste and recycling frameworks, encouragement of sustainable agriculture and ensuring material flows are monitored and traced.

Grains and food-products ensure global nutrition and feed supply. Biomass connects agriculture with renewable energy and material value-chains, whilst waste embodies the large-scale transition to circular systems. Each stream is significant in volume, deeply interconnected with global infrastructure and essential to sustainability goals. Meeting the challenges, from logistics to infrastructure, sustainability, material-quality and policy/regulatory frameworks will determine how effectively we can manage these bulk flows and unlock their value for a resilient, resource-efficient future.

As TAKRAF Group, we look forward to supporting all stakeholders in meeting these challenges and unlocking value for such a future – For Mining with Meaning.

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