The FlowScanner analyzer is attracting a lot of interest in the paper and pulp industry, as it easily analyzes incoming chips directly in the process flow. In 2022, a North American pulp group placed orders for six machines to be installed at three of their mills. FlowScanner is manufactured in Vallentuna.

Masoud Salavati in front of two FlowScanner 1200s to be shipped to the US. The outer dimensions are 3.1 meters in height, 1.8 meters in width and 2.2 meters in depth. The tunnel through which the mass flow passes and is X-rayed is 3.6 meters long and has a sandwich design, with two layers of stainless steel and one layer of lead to ensure radiation safety.
FlowScanner manufactured in cooperation with Högbloms in Vallentuna
FlowScanner was initially developed by Mantex and has been further developed and manufactured for some years by Andritz Technologies AB in Solna, which is jointly owned by Mantex AB and the process industry company Andritz AB. Production is performed in cooperation with the contract manufacturer Högbloms Legomontage in Vallentuna.
Masoud Salavati is Operations and R&D Manager at Andritz Technologies.
“Here we assemble everything – mechanics, electronics, climate systems – we test, pack up and send to the customer,” explains Masoud Salavati in the production hall at Högbloms in Vallentuna.
“These machines are going to our end customer in the US, a large pulp group. Andritz Inc. assembles and installs at the customer’s site and we assist remotely. After testing, the machines are customized, which involves calibrating the weight and optimizing the parameters against the customer’s conveyor belts and chips.”
Customer values
“You could say that FlowScanner does three things for the customer,” explains Masoud.
1 – Measures the mass flow of wood chips, i.e. it weighs the weight of the wood chips flow to the digesters.
2 – Measures the moisture content of the chips.
3 – Detects foreign objects. It detects anything that is not wood chips, such as stone, metal, copper and asphalt.
Each machine has to be adapted to the specific needs of the customer and the plant, the flow rate, the type of chips, etc.
Different models meeting the needs of the market
“The machines going to the US are the FlowScanner 1200 model, which can handle wood chips on conveyor belts up to 1200 mm wide and chip heights up to 300 mm. We also have Flow Scanner 2000, which can handle belt widths up to 2000 mm and chip flow heights up to 380 mm,” says Masoud.
“In addition to the six FlowScanner 1200s, we have also received orders for two even larger models in 2022. One will go to a newly built major pulp mill in Brazil, a Brazilian group that is one of the world’s largest pulp producers. The other will go to a major pulp and paper mill in Asia. These will be capable of handling belt widths of up to 3000 mm and meet the customer demand of being able to measure really large chip flows with heights of 400, 500 and 600 mm.”
“With this larger model, we will have a range that meets the needs of our major markets in South America, North America and Asia well,” says Masoud.