PET | INNOVATION


decontamination process to be fit for use in direct food contact; depending on the final application, the requirements in relation to rPET may vary considerably. In principle, customers need to satisfy the requirements of national and international authorities such as FDA or EFSA; in addition, bottle-to-bottle recyclers may need to adhere to the rules and threshold levels of multinational brand owners, which call for a higher decontamina- tion performance. The company says that the cleaning efficiency of the Starlinger PET iV+ recycling process fulfils or exceeds all of these requirements. Based on the consistently positive evaluation by EFSA, it is possible to use 100% rPET in the production of preforms. This means that rPET produced on RecoSTAR PET iV+ lines may be used to replace virgin resin. There is currently a total installed bottle-to-bottle recycling capacity of more than 500,000 tonnes per year using Starlinger decontamination technology in the market. Italian PET bottle technology specialist Sipa and


recycling technology group Erema have collabo- rated on the direct processing of washed PET flakes to make food contact grade preforms in a single step. The PET inline preform system com- bines Erema’s Vacurema technology with Sipa’s Xtreme preform production system. The companies say that the system offers PET processors economic and ecological benefits, such as energy savings, lower logistics and process costs and higher profitability due to the direct link of the two systems eliminating all the waste of the complete process. Another advantage is that lightweighting


of up to 8% is possible with the Xtreme preform design. Trials on the PET inline preform system showed that the weight consistency, viscosity and colour values of the preforms – depending on flake quality – were on a par with those of virgin material. The first application of this new system -- FtoP


Direct Recycle Technology for use in soft drink PET bottle preform production -- has been developed by Suntory Holdings with Kyoei Industry. Preforms using this technology will be manufac- tured at Kyoei Industry and gradually introduced for part of Suntory Beverage & Food’s PET bottle products from the summer of 2018 onwards. FtoP Direct Recycle Technology uses flakes


created by pulverising and washing recovered PET bottles, treated at high temperature and low pressure for a fixed period. After being melted and filtered, the preforms can be manufactured directly. In order to form preforms of uniform quality, it is important to pour the melted flake into the moulding machine at a constant pressure. The development of this technology required building the facilities and verifying the process over a signifi- cant period of time. In comparison to the previous arrangement that required a large number of processes leading up to the manufacture of the preform, such as crystallisation and drying, it is estimated that a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of approximately 25% will be possible. NGR has developed the P:React Liquid State


Polycondensation (LSP) process for PET recycling. The LSP process utilises the inherent capability of PET to condensate in the molten phase under vacuum. This condensation leads to an increase of intrinsic viscosity (IV). The high performance vacuum effectively decontaminates the material from harmful chemicals, securing further use of the material for 100% food contact applications. P:React uses the melt energy for condensing PET and the reactor itself only maintains the heat


www.plasticsrecyclingworld.com May/June 2018 | PLASTICS RECYCLING WORLD 19


Above: Erema and Sipa’s collaboration enables PET preforms to be made directly from washed PET flakes


Left: Head of Process


Engineering at Starlinger, Christian Lovranich, with Richard Wüllner and Andrzej Zajontz of BTB PET-Recycling


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