Rockwool – Roermond rocks!

The Rockwool Group is a global leader in stone wool products. The company provides solutions for energy-efficient and fire-safe buildings, with optimal soundproofing and climate control. But Rockwool also makes products for various other sectors and industries, such as greenhouse construction, petrochemicals and shipbuilding. The Rockwool factory is a good customer of Wivé Techniek. We are quite proud of that. We therefore spoke with our regular contact at Rockwool Roermond: Mr. Jen Deelstra, Manager Technical Services.

At Rockwool Benelux we have five furnace lines, where the raw material is melted and spun into stone wool fibers with different properties. There are also four confection departments where we process the fibers into a high-quality semi-finished or finished product. Plus a recycling plant where we process our own waste streams.

Most people know Rockwool primarily for roof and cavity insulation, the rolls of rock wool they use in construction to insulate walls and roofs. But there are many more applications. For example, we also make insulating sheets for suspended ceilings and special “pipe trays,” used in industry to insulate very hot pipes. We also see rockwool as germination plugs, blocks and mats in greenhouse farming, where they grow tomatoes and cucumbers directly on our product. There are also very “dense” products such as Rockpanel boards for cladding. And finally, we sell our semi-finished fibers for use in ferrodo materials such as engine gaskets, clutch plates and brake pads. The fibers are highly resistant to friction and heat.

Originally, I am a marine engineer. Consequently, I started my career in the merchant marine. For nineteen years on board, I gained a lot of experience with the application of pipe materials, high-pressure steam on turbine ships, and wear on pistons and cylinder liners in large engines. Thus, I became increasingly interested in the properties of steels and their interaction with additives. What I find enormously fascinating is the influence of crystal lattices in the fight against steel wear. Fortunately, I get a lot of freedom here to think up and implement innovative solutions.

As technical manager of the production facilities, my job is to ensure production continuity. We treat the rock wool fibers mostly in cyclones, where the material is chased around at high speeds and often at high temperatures. That is also where the basis of wear and tear lies. Stone wool is very hard and abrasion-resistant. As soon as it brushes past other materials, those materials almost always appear to wear out. Even harder steels suffer greatly from contact with stone wool fibers. At the micro level, steel has a granular structure. It crumbles because of the rock wool fibers, like the embankment of a stream because of the fast flowing water. So to prevent that, that’s where my challenge lies.

Rockwool is innovating and developing new applications in many areas. It’s in the company’s genes, so to speak. By innovating, we also always stay a few steps ahead of the competition. Further development applies not only to the end products, but certainly also to the production processes themselves. Together with Wivé Techniek, for example, I have successfully experimented with the use of wear-resistant coatings. We started with stone and looked at Widia and alumina tiles, among others. However, these are difficult to form along curved surfaces. Today we are doing more and more with Vautid. The results are so positive that we are going to use this material in more and more places in the process. That’s how we keep busy.

Rockwool is innovating and developing new applications in many areas. It’s in the company’s genes, so to speak. By innovating, we also always stay a few steps ahead of the competition. Further development applies not only to the end products, but certainly also to the production processes themselves. Together with Wivé Techniek, for example, I have successfully experimented with the use of wear-resistant coatings. We started with stone and looked at Widia and alumina tiles, among others. However, these are difficult to form along curved surfaces. Today we are doing more and more with Vautid. The results are so positive that we are going to use this material in more and more places in the process. That’s how we keep busy.