RECYCLING AND GRANULATORS | MACHINERY


of systems has been increased, and the service life of wearing components extended, so that unplanned down- times have been minimised. “This leads to reduced production waste during the start-up and shutdown of the lines,” he said. “This means we can offer smaller plants with improved perfor- mance and reliability, which entails less installation space, energy input and production waste – for improved product quality.” Claudio Bonafede, general manager of Maag, added: “Another innovation in the market is the Maag Brain. This stand-alone monitoring system is a step forward in the world of Industry 4.0 and Internet of Things (IoT). It has been developed to monitor pumps and ensure their maximum efficiency during operation.”


Feeding time Neue Herbold has developed a new feeding device for granulators. To increase the throughput rate of a granulator used for size reduction of loose, unpressed plastics, a force-feeding tech- nique has been developed. A screw conveyor is used for technically optimised material feed. The material is fed in the feed hopper via a conveyor. The transport to the grinding chamber is now no longer only based on gravity – in fact the material is now fed to the grinding chamber by one or more vertically assembled screws. Depending on the required granulator size, the number of screws, rotation speed and drive capacity can vary. A transport screw equipped with load- depend-


ent control as well as a frequency converter prevents a rotor blockage caused by material accumulation. This results in a throughput rate which is ideal for the processed material. The wear protected design of the transport screw guarantees long-lasting operation. The company says that this feeding method


offers a number of advantages. These include a wide range of application areas, such as plastics bottles, canisters, packing materials from food production, as well as all thin-walled hollow containers. The feed hopper is equipped with a worm gear shaft which enables a continuous material feed and prevents material swerve at the same time, which results in a throughput increase of up to 30%. Increased efficiency results from the accurate and constant material feed that leads to ideal utilisation of the rotor capacity and supports


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the efficiency of the entire plant. Furthermore, the material fly-out


from the feed hopper is reduced which leads to complete process- ing of the entire material fed to the system. There is increased material feed due to the continu- ous size reduction of the material, the feed hopper is ready to receive large amounts of material. Compared with a standard granulator feed, a material blockage in the hopper is almost impossible, meaning


that input capacity is maxim- ised. There are also decreased sound and power peaks. The controlled material feed


guarantees a constant, smooth rotor operation and therefore reduces sound


peaks, which could occur by overfeeding. This constant material feed also prevents power peaks during the operation of the machine.


Waste collaboration Neue Herbold has also collaborated with Weima in the two-stage processing of plastic waste – shred- ding and granulation. A two-stage processing system is often required to achieve particularly fine particle sizes. In coop- eration granulator specialist Neue Herbold, Weima has implemented a number of joint customer solutions. Shredders from Weima can be operated and controlled via Siemens PLC control. They have common interfaces (such as Profibus and Profinet) and can be optimally integrated into existing production systems, including peripherals such as extraction, metal detection and secondary crush-


Left: Neue Herbold has developed a feeding device that increases granulator throughput rate


Above: Weima and Neue Herbold have collaborated in the two-stage processing of plastic waste – shredding and granulation


May/June 2022 | PIPE & PROFILE EXTRUSION 25


IMAGE: NEUE HERBOLD


IMAGE: WEIMA


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