Steady development since 1898

Founded in 1898 in Hattingen, Germany, Köppern remains a family-run enterprise reflecting its traditional values of technology leadership and highly dependable manufacturing quality, coupled with a unique regard for the individual needs of its customers. Köppern’s global network of subsidiaries provides customized service on all continents.

The company’s history is very much linked to the briquetting of hard coal, a process that goes back to the mid-17th century. But it wasn’t until the end of the 19th century that the manufacture of briquettes became a modern industrial process. Mechanical presses were then used for the next 50 years to generate briquettes for use as domestic and industrial fuel, until coal began to be gradually replaced by oil and gas.

Wilhelm Köppern, a mining company director, acquired the ‘Berninghaus-Hütte’ in Hattingen, on the River Ruhr, in 1898. Refining the original Belgian design of the roller presses made there, he profited greatly from the growing demand for briquette production. His son and son-in-law, Leopold Köppern and Otto Schäfer, took over the company in 1926, renaming it Maschinenfabrik Köppern. They steadily expanded the family business, gaining market share and extending its customer base throughout Europe and as far away as South America and China. 

After the Second World War, the declining need for domestic coal forced Köppern to seek new applications and to develop their technology accordingly. This for example included the processing of refractory materials, fertilizers, chemical products and sponge iron.    

Following the introduction of high-pressure grinding roller presses (HPGRs) in the 1980s, Köppern also successfully expanded into the cement industry, building a strong position through innovative press designs as well as the unique HEXADUR^® wear protection system. Köppern’s HPGRs are now widely used for the comminution of raw materials, clinker and slag for cement production as well as a variety of ores and minerals, including iron ore, gold, copper, nickel, bauxite, vanadium, molybdenum and diamondiferous ore.

In order to meet the requirements of highest plant performance operating with HPGRs, Köppern expended its product portfolio with the Koesep-air classifiers. The first industrial-scale application of the combined air classifier “2-Stage Koesep” was in 2015.
Köppern has sold several hundred roller presses in over 60 countries for briquetting, compaction and comminution. In collaboration with our customers, optimized processes have been developed by our dedicated staff of process engineers and tested in Köppern’s own pilot plant, backed up by trials involving more than 2,000 different materials.