MechChem Africa November-December 2023

MechChem Africa meets the directors and management team of Nordbak, South Africa’s leading manufacturer and applicator of synthetic co-polymer and epoxy-based compounds for applications such as crusher backing; mitigating against impact and abrasive wear, acid and severe corrosion resistance, and pulley lagging. Advanced co-polymer compounds for heavy impact, abrasion and corrosion applications

“T he products we manufacture in our Wadeville factory in Germiston are used to protect liners and surfaces from wear and corrosion caused by impact, friction or chemical attack. We service the mining, petrochemical, minerals processing and trans portation sectors, who rely on our products to protect and extend the lives of their heavy plant equipment such as crushers, conveyor pulleys, process vessels, tanks and slurry piping systems,” begins the company’s CEO, Mark Beyl. With approximately 110 employees coun trywide, the company’s head office is at its manufacturing plant in Germiston, and it has sales and support branches in Phalaborwa in the Limpopo Province and Kathu in the Northern Cape Province. “Some of our staff have been working at Nordbak for 39 years, which adds to Nordbak’s wealth of experience in developing solutions and delivering them to our clients,” Beyl adds. Founded in 1962 to distribute a limited range of imported products, in 1972 Nordbak began to manufacture polymer compounds under license. “Since our previous owner, Harry Gardiner, took over the management in the early nineteen nineties, Nordbak has been actively developing and applying co-polymer technology to its products. This has led to the current range of advanced solutions, which are uniquely tailored to different application needs on the African continent,” he continues. “As a result, Nordbak, with the widest range of wear and abrasion resistant prod ucts, has become the market leader in South Africa. We have invested, and continue to invest, heavily in research and development to improve our existing compounds and to develop new solutions for the specific needs of customers across Africa,” Mark Beyl tells MechChem Africa . Polymer technology involves the develop ment of monomer-based liquid-resin com pounds that, when mixed with a hardener, are transformed into solid and stable long-chain polymers. “In principle, our products work in the same way as two-part glues and putties that harden when mixed,” continues Deon Henning, Nordbak’s contracts director. “Co polymers, though, consist of more than one polymer, which enables us to tune the key

properties of our products to suit particular applications and environmental conditions. “In terms of formulation expertise, we are probably about 20 years ahead of new local suppliers,” he continues. “You can get a func tional baseline formulation relatively quickly but, over the years, we have discovered that what is necessary is a formulation that works consistently in the field – and it typically takes three years of R&D, tweaking, and onsite tri als, to develop and fine tune each application specific compound. “We have found, for example, that ambient temperature when you apply the compound plays a major role; so we have special formula tions and application tricks for use in different conditions. The compound also has to survive cold conditions during shipping, so we had to modify it to provide for that too. It is not only the strength, wear or corrosion resistance that we have to get right,” Henning explains. Beyl adds that Nordbak is one of the only co-polymer manufacturing company in South Africa that produces linings that pass the smoke and toxicity tests for underground mining. On the product side, Henning says that the company’s flagship product is its NORDBAK ® Hi-Performance Backing for supporting metal wear plates in large gyratory and seven-foot

cone crushers. “This product eliminates all the gaps between the shell on a crusher and its liners. Once the backing is secured behind the liner, the shock loads of impacting rock are absorbed by the backing and spread more evenly through to the casing. This prevents single point loading and associated localised damage,” he explains. Nordbak ® Hi-Performance Backing is designed to deliver excellent impact strength, resilience and high compression and tensile strength. It is non-flammable, needs no melt ing or special equipment to install, and has a high volumetric stability. “It really is world renowned!” adds Henning. Anton Kaber, Nordbak’s sales director describes another product success in Zambia for the Konkola Copper Mine (KCM). “About a year ago, we received a progress report from KCM about tail pulleys C5 and C4 of the conveyors feeding the copper concentrator. A few months previously, we had lined these with a 12 mm coating of our Hi-Impact Pulley Compound, and after running them for 1 489 hours, they had done a calculation around the life advantages,” he explains. In terms of production hours, they calcu lated the life expectancy of the Nordbak-lined pulley to be 13 693 hours, which is around 570 24-hour days. For comparative purposes,

Nordbak’s Hi-Impact Pulley Compound was applied to KCM tail pulleys C5 and C4 conveyors feeding the copper concentrator. The calculated pulley life after 1 489 hours of operation was calculated to be around 570 24-hour days, three-times that of a rubber pulley tested at the same time.

20 ¦ MechChem Africa • November-December 2023