9. Conclusion

Although pneumatic handling has many advantages, two drawbacks are still being researched and are likely to be the source of future innovations:

• energy consumption can be high in certain configurations;

• the phenomenon of product attrition can modify the product's expected physico-chemical properties.

As well as constantly seeking to increase component availability, reliability and safety, and reduce investment and maintenance costs, all manufacturers are developing new techniques to reduce energy consumption and limit attrition. These developments, which are often still empirical, require trial campaigns on an industrial-scale pilot plant, in order to best adapt the technology to the product to be transported and its process.

This has led to the...