TECHNOLOGY | WASHING
Right: Hydrodyn has developed a containerised solution for a compact
washing line
recyclate and the resulting large-scale industrial quantities deriving from the hot washing system form a crucial upstream stage in the production of food-safe material for preforms or thermofor- med foils. Herbold says that it is also monitoring other opportunities to improve quality in plastics recycling. As well as optimal integra- tion of hot washing systems, it is also offering solutions for water treatment, as well as for reducing operational costs. Herbold has been involved in a project with
recycler Integra based in Sofia, Bulgaria. The first stage is a sorting plant where film waste is sorted by material type and colour. Input is mixed film sourced across Europe. The second stage is an extensive Herbold wash line where batches of pre-sorted film are processed including a hot wash step to take away odour and glue for example. After washing, flake sorting takes place to achieve top quality clear film flakes. The different colour batches after washing are then processed with an Erema extruder, which has a double laser filter and allows very fine melt filtration. Herbold says that the whole process produces high quality recyclates from dirty input material. Post-consumer film recycler WKR Walter Austria has also installed a Herbold film wash line. In order to extend its facility in Wels, Austria, WKR Walter chose a completely integrated solution with key components being a VWE pre-wash system, hydrocyclone separation and a twin centrifugal dry- ing step. The infeed of the line is baled material, sourced from Germany, based on DSD 310 spec. The plant provides for the efficient cleaning of the material, with a hydrocyclone separation step as a key requirement for the production of high-grade recyclate for manufacturing thin-walled film. All of the company’s three existing wash lines have also been upgraded by Herbold with hydrocyclones in the past couple of years. WKR Walter no longer needs to operate a film wash line with a thermal drying unit, due to efficiency of the centrifuge. The new line is designed for 10,000 tonnes/year and WKR Walter is looking at further expansion. Hydrodyn also observes the trend towards post-consumer LDPE film recycling – from collection schemes, household waste sorting lines and even
28 PLASTICS RECYCLING WORLD | July/August 2019
plans to recover material from landfill. “These materials, depending on country and sorting line, are usually heavily contaminated with stones, sand, organics, cardboard, mixed plastics such as PET and rigid materials, aluminium and labels,” says Lukas Kupczyk, Head of Project Management. “As a result they require extensive washing,
post-sorting and water treatment technology. For heavy
contamination, our patented HydroClean- er employs precise friction and separation of
contamination in several stages. We also see a need for solutions with a small footprint due to rising cost of land – containerised solutions,” he said. “We have developed a compact, fully container- ised wash and water treatment solution that can either upgrade existing lines to be able to handle heavily contaminated inputs or be used as a quickly installed and commissioned new line with a very small footprint. The containerised line includes shredder, extruder and water treatment and has a footprint of around 800m². The solution is built around the HydroCleaner, where we can remove the contamination through a precise friction technique without using a hot wash or similar system. In addition, we have developed sifting technology for washed and dried flakes, based on low energy consumption, to sort contamination such as rigid plastics or aluminium to enrich LDPE further before processing in an extruder.” AMUT has established a facility for recycling
POAL – polyethylene plus aluminium composite recovered from packaging such as Tetra Pak – to produce Ecoallene, which has an Italian patent. This material is easy to colour and contains some aluminium particles that make it slightly glittered. The main applications are automotive, building, giftware and general tools. AMUT has developed this project together with the Italian start-up and Ecoallene licensee Ecoplas- team, which can recycle 7,000 tonnes of waste coming from this particular packaging, mainly from the polycomposite part (up to now only cellulose could be recovered). AMUT has developed technol- ogy for POAL treatment and washing and the extrusion line to turn the final material into pellets. The two companies say that they have been able
to sort out the complex issue of disposing most of this material waste – a process that has always
www.plasticsrecyclingworld.com
PHOTO: HYDRODYN
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