INLINE MEASUREMENT | PROCESS CONTROL
market for inline measurement and inspection equipment is being driven by demand for high performance technical plastics, in particular for the medical, aircraft and automotive industries. “These require the highest quality standards, as well as reliable control and processing of raw materials. Accordingly, the requirements for the purity of these materials are particularly high. We see a strong demand for high purity materials by compounders, as well as all plastics manufacturers and processors worldwide,” says Ralf Kulenkampff, Head of Sales, Plastics. “Our customers appreciate the highest detec-
tion rates, process stability, reliability and simple handling offered by our system. This applies to all customers, from cable manufacturers and raw material producers to contract sorters and com- pounders. We have a strong R&D department that is continuously working on new solutions. Through close cooperation with the customer, successful solutions have already been developed and incorporated as standard into the device,” he says. Due to the modular system design of Sikora’s
Purity Scanner Advanced pellet inspection system, different camera types can be used depending on the particular material being inspected. In addition to optical cameras, which reliably detect black specks and discolouration, an X-ray camera can be installed to detect metallic contaminants. Many systems on the market use a maximum of two optical cameras, the company claims. How- ever, these can quickly reach their limits due to relatively low coverage and field of view. For this reason, Sikora offers the option of a third optical camera. This offers a significantly higher detection rate and is particularly advantageous where a Purity Scanner Advanced system is integrated directly into a production line, as inline multiple sorting with a typical two-camera system is not possible.
Sikora says that the Purity Scanner Advanced system automatically separates out detected contamination through a blow-out unit. While the three-camera set-up provides a higher detection rate, optimisation of the sorting is important and it has developed a hybrid blow-out feature for this rea- son. This allows the customer to define in advance which impurities in the material represent uncritical contamination, for which there is a smaller blow-out unit. This might include, for example, small, light- coloured black specks that frequently occur in material. The larger blow-out unit is then specified for critical contaminants, such as metal inclusions, that can impair the functionality of the end product.
Pellet inspection Italy-based Industrie Polieco-MPB is a large European compounder of polyethylene and polypropylene. It uses Sikora sorting systems for quality control to inspect and sort pellets used for production of films for food packaging. It is using a Purity Scanner Advanced unit to inspect for impurities at the final step of its process for production of maleic-anhydride grafted functional polymers. These polymers are used as adhesives and/or coupling agents and are used in products that will come into contact with food and/or drinking water including tie-layers in multilayer food packaging films or multilayer pipes for hot and cold water installations. Sikora says that its system is reliably detecting pellets with colour deviations, as well as pellets with small black spots on the surface. These are both defects that can occur due to side-reactions during production of grafted polymers. The system automatically sorts out all detected contamination starting at a size of 50 microns. Furthermore, it provides various statistics as well as an image gallery of the detected contamination, which helps in optimising production.
“During the development and continuous
improvement of our production processes, we have been able to minimise the formation of black spots and of pellets with colour deviations,” says Marina Ausonio, Research & Development Execu- tive at Industrie Polieco-MPB. “However, the presence of such defects cannot be completely avoided. Sorting systems like Sikora’s Purity Scanner Advanced have the essential task to get rid of such residual defects so that we can provide our clients with a superior quality material.” German company Göttfert has developed an inline rheometer for continuous measurement of extensional viscosity during extrusion. The com- pany says that online process monitoring of
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Left: Sikora’s Purity Scanner Advanced pellet inspec- tion system is designed for 100% inline inspection
November 2023 | COMPOUNDING WORLD 45
IMAGE: SIKORA
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