TECHNOLOGY | PET
Right: Erema has started work in a new fibre test centre where post- production PET fibre has been recycled into high-quality pellets and then spun for production of knitted fabric
fibre waste. Over two days, more than 150 guests visited the Gneuss Technical Centre in Bad Oeyn- hausen, Germany, where its Omniboost Recycling System was shown processing post-production PET fibre waste. The material had a residual moisture level of 6% and an IV of 0.64 dl/g. In the demonstration, the fibre waste was fed into the Omniboost system with a throughput rate of 150 kg/h and the viscosity was increased using the Gneuss liquid melt phase IV booster technology. “The visitors were impressed by the speed of the
IV boost: with a residence time within minutes, the IV was increased to 0.66. For an IV boost to 0.84 a residence time less then half an hour was required,” says Gneuss. The Omniboost technology is designed for
recycling both post-industrial and post-consumer PET waste with a low bulk density, such as waste fibres and thin film. Without the need for any thermal pre-treatment, the material is fed into the Gneuss 3C Rotary Feeder, which cuts and compacts the material as well as feeding it directly into the MRS Extruder screw. The MRS Extruder has a section of extruder
screw with a number of satellite screws, which rotate in the opposite direction to the main screw. This creates “a huge surface area” and ensures a rapid surface area exchange rate, says Gneuss. The high degassing performance and minimal stress on the material means the system can decontaminate post-consumer PET to food contact requirements. In the demonstration, the polymer melt exits the
extruder and is filtered with the Gneuss RSFgenius Melt Filtration System, which achieves fine filtration without pressure or flow disturbances and with minimised polymer loss. The melt then flows into the Gneuss Jump liquid phase IV booster reactor. The viscosity of the melt is measured both on the inlet and outlet of the reactor. The viscosity is boosted to the required level by regulating the vacuum level, residence time and surface area exchange rate in the reactor vessel. With consistent viscosity, the material can be fed while still in the melt phase to the production process, such as fibre spinning and strapping tape, says Gneuss. Starlinger Recycling Technology is another PET
recycling machinery group that has made inroads into the growing market for fibre waste recycling. Three types of RecoStar lines are offered to recycle fibre, textile or non-woven scrap: RecoStar Dynamic is suited to hygroscopic and humid material due to cutting and preheating in the Smart feeder; RecoStar Universal allows processing of fibres,
18 PLASTICS RECYCLING WORLD | March/April 2023
filaments and non-wovens in the Active shredder without pre-cutting; RecoStar PET processes pre-ground material, allowing the use of PET post-consumer bottle flakes as an alternative, cost-effective input material for fibre producers. Starlinger reported in 2021 that a RecoStar Universal 165 H-VAC iV+ had been installed by Turkish yarn producer Korteks at its new polymer recycling facility in Bursa. With an initial production capacity of 7,200 tpa, the system was installed to recycle clean in-house polyester fibres from production scrap together with washed post- consumer PET flakes at a ratio of 50/50. A feature of the Korteks system was a Rapid Sleeve Changer (RSC) candle filter developed by Starlinger to allow finest melt filtration down to 15 μm with an output of 1,000 kg/h. The RSC filter was specially designed for polyester fibre recycling. The line was also fitted with a ViscoStar SSP unit for IV increase to make sure that the produced regranulate was suitable for filament yarn production. Bottle-to-fibre recycling is another capability of
Starlinger’s PET recycling lines. In October last year, the company said Ganesha Ecopet had opened a facility in Warangal, India where a RecoStar PET 165 H-VAC system fitted with an RSC melt filter process- es washed PET bottle flakes for Go Rewise brand polyester filament yarn applications and reaches an output of approximately 14,000 tpa.
CLICK ON THE LINKS FOR MORE INFORMATION: �
www.bbeng.de �
www.erema.com �
www.gneuss.com �
www.starlinger.com/en/recycling
www.plasticsrecyclingworld.com
IMAGE: EREMA
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