DRYAD Technology History – who are
we?
DRYAD TECHNOLOGY Inc.,(DTI) was incorporated in the State of Delaware in 2000. DTI head quarters is located in Atlanta, Georgia (U.S.). DTI owns the controlling stake in a separte private partnerhip that owns the original spray technology. DTI directors and officers are
Robert Donnelly, PhD (U.S.) and Martti Kangas, MSc, PE (U.S.). These individuals have acquired a wide range of international paper
industry and management experience expanding in time beyond 40 years.
The technology is described in the following US and international patents with further development in the pipeline. In our preferred process we use patented air/gas aided low pressure nozzles that have been modified to suit better for spray sizing and coating processes.
We knew from our past testing in early 1970's that high pressure nozzles work also but we learned at the time that they would wear too fast and work properly only at one flow rate per nozzle opening. With that the need to control the flow and profiling was out of question. Our new gas/air aided low pressure nozzles can spray any quantity of starches and coating colors up to the maximum capacity of the nozzle without losing the form of the out coming spray cone. Regardless of these deficiencies of the high pressure nozzles ("fluid type nozzles") we did not declare them useless but instead included them in our patents as they could be used in some specific applications.
Here is the list of our patents (add 2010 patents pending):
- USA 7,217,342 B2, filed November 24, 2003, Issued May 15, 2007;
- USA 6,866,207 B2, filed June 4, 2003, Issued March 15, 2005;
- USA 6,969,012-B2, filed January 24, 2002, Issued November 29, 2005;
- CAN 2,148,505, filed November 5 ,1993, Issued March 08, 2005; International patents in major paper making countries except USA
- USA 4,944,960, filed September 23 ,1988, Issued July 31, 1990; International patents in major paper making countries
Our initial patenting effort was supported by
the Finnish Government's technology development organization.
After demonstrating the technology to some major paper machine manufacturers we agreed to work together with VIB Systems GmbH, a highly respected family owned company from Germany with a long track record in the paper industry. We had found their re-moisturizing nozzle to be one of the most promising and they filled our essential requirements for sizing and coating while in "as is" form they were not usable. The joint nozzle development work was done in Atlanta. At the same time we demonstrated the viability of our spray technology both for sizing and coating using a complete spray withy mist removal. This unit, "Model 2002", demonstrated all the main features of our spray technology on a pilot machine in the US South.
The jointly patented spray nozzle was tested and fine-tuned in Germany during the economic down cycle and include now all main features discussed and analyzed during the development phase in Atlanta. With improving economy a new pilot unit "Model 2008" was constructed and installed on a high speed pilot machine in Finland. This system was first used for fine tuning the system to high starch solids (25%...30%) and since it is being used for a multitude of proprietary client test runs for heavy and light weight commodity paper and board grades.
From
the early on the major paper manufacturing companies have expressed serious interest to spray sizing and coating and have all confirmed our savings estimates. Without their special support this technology would have disappeared as a real technology and "shelved" until the expiration of our patents.
No other
existing paper sizing or coating technology can equal the economic outcome offered by the spray technology and we know perfectly well that this technology works. Stay tuned...
