TECHNOLOGY | PET RECYCLING
Right: Recycled PET flakes and rPET granulate
screw diameters of 165 and 330 mm. Viscotec, also part of the Starlinger group, specialises in PET sheet extrusion lines, making systems that incorporate rPET from bottles and packaging, as well as technology for increasing intrinsic viscosity (IV) in rPET. The company says it has passed the milestone of 2m tonnes of installed recycling capacity worldwide. “Our solutions make it possible to recycle valuable raw materials. Our partners and customers share our conviction that PET can and must be recycled,” says Angelika Huemer, Managing Director of Starlinger. “To recycle contains the word ‘cycle’. Closing the loop is exactly what recyclers and packaging manufacturers do with Star- linger RecoStar and ViscoStar systems: they produce recyclate which is safe for food contact. A beverage bottle can be turned into a beverage bottle again after recycling.” The trend towards bigger plants and higher
quality recyclate is confirmed by fellow Austrian plastics recycling technology specialist Erema. “Despite declining sales of beverages due to the Covid-19 pandemic and a tense situation in the recycling industry accounted for by the fall in the price of virgin material, interest in our PET recycling technologies remains high,” says Christoph Wöss, Business Development Manager at Erema Group. Erema estimates the total capacity of all PET
recycling machines it has sold to date for various applications to be 2.6m tonnes per year. A recent trend points clearly towards customers favouring its larger systems processing upwards of 2,000 kg/h. The company cites a very large recycling system installed for a customer in Mexico last year. The line consists of two Vacurema Basic T ma- chines, each with a capacity of 4,000 kg/h and incorporating solid state polycondensation (SSP). “The customer is planning an annual production
of up to 60,000 tonnes of food contact compliant rPET. These are the largest systems we have ever
built, but our order books already have an order for an even larger one,” says Wöss. Erema is particularly satisfied with the market success of its innovative Vacunite technology, which combines vacuum and nitrogen technology, and which it claims “redefines the benchmark for performance in bottle-to-bottle.” In just under two years, it has sold systems, developed in coopera- tion with SSP technology specialist Polymetrix, to 13 customers around the world. Growth is driven by more than the positive development of the bottle-to-bottle sector, Erema says. It highlights its Multi Purpose Reactor, which makes possible the processing of PET flakes directly, not only into preforms but also into film and sheet, and especially into recycled pellets for the textile industry. “In total, Erema was able to deliver 42 plants with a total capacity of 643,000 tonnes per year within one year between October 2019 and October 2020. This is roughly equivalent to the total capacity of all PET recycling machines sold from 2011 to 2018,” the company says. Erema also highlights its involvement in the
PET2PACK research project in Austria. Aimed at closing the loop for non-bottle PET rigid packag- ing, its focus is on sorting and recycling technology
Melt Delivery and Pelletizing Systems for Producing Virgin-Like rPET
Produce high levels of purity Reach filtration finenesses up to 25µm Save money due to minimal melt loss Reduce energy consumption significantly Ensure high productivity
WWW.NORDSONPOLYMERPROCESSING.COM
IMAGE: STARLINGER
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