B Factory Dryers

Dryer 6 in Factory B of the Morwell Power Station and Briquette Factories, viewed from the rear at a 5-degree angle. Coal loaded from the coolers above was rotated through pulverised dust inside the drum and dried by steam piped from the power station. 20 tonnes of coal entered the drum and roughly 8 tonnes left it, more than half the original weight lost as moisture before the load moved on to the presses. A large bell-shaped pendant light hangs at the left of the frame. The 'B6' marking is still legible on the wall above the machine, the surrounding steel and masonry corroded and grimed.

The dryer is one stage in the briquette factory's wet section, the only remaining intact assemblage of mid-twentieth-century briquetting machinery in Victoria, registered alongside its hammer mills, shaker screens and conveyor cascades. The briquetting presses that the dried coal fed were supplied by Maschinenfabrik Buckau R. Wolf A.G. of Germany under the 1950 contract. Morwell brown coal proved unsuitable for briquetting because of its high alkali and sulphur content, so Yallourn coal was railed across the interconnecting line to feed these factories, which ran continuously until the 2014 closure. Brett photographed Dryer 6 on 15 April 2017, in the closed briquette factory before the demolition program began.