TECHNOLOGY | ODOUR AND EMISSIONS
Kitzberger says growth in demand for odour
reduction systems is driven both by the ambitious recycling goals set by the European Union and the fact that recycling technologies are becoming more and more efficient. “Both of these factors have made applications possible for PCR that were unimaginable a few years ago, and this trend is set to continue,” he says. “The EU’s recycling goals will mean reusing 10m tonnes of recyclates in new products every year in future.” He says a particularly noteworthy example of a high-end product made from post-consumer recyclate is a bottle produced for Werner & Mertz’s Frisch shower gel in 100% PCR HDPE, which was launched in the spring of 2019. The recyclate is produced using an Intarema TVEplus RegrindPro machine plus ReFresher module. The Intarema TVEplus RegrindPro/ReFresher
recycling process was certified by the FDA two years ago as suitable for the production of milk and juice bottles, as well as meat trays, disposable tableware and cutlery, provided the input material comes from milk and juice bottles. In November last year, the FDA confirmed an additional input stream and more application uses for the recyclate treated this way. Now, HDPE closures used on HDPE, PP and PET beverage bottles can also be processed and material containing up to 100% recyclate can be used in production of containers for direct contact with food of all kinds. Thomas Hofstätter, Process Engineer at Erema,
says: “While the high degassing extrusion system removes mainly highly volatile, low molecular weight substances, the ReFresher ensures a significant reduction of the low volatile, high molecular weight organic compounds in the recycled pellets.” He also points to the energy efficiency of the system, which makes use of the thermal energy of the still-warm recycled pellets after the extrusion process. Earlier this year, Erema installed an extruder-
ReFresher combination for industrial-scale custom- er testing in the expanded customer centre at the group’s headquarters in Ansfelden, Austria. Erema also offers a compact and mobile ReFresher module that can be integrated into the on-site recy- cling process and can be used to carry out tests at the customer’s plant,
Multi-layer solutions The recycling of multilayer films is a hot topic today. While monolayer solutions are beginning to replace coextruded product in some packaging applications, quantities of multilayer barrier films entering the waste stream are still significant. Italian
14 PLASTICS RECYCLING WORLD | October 2021
Erema’s ReFresher
targets low volatile high molecular weight organic contaminants in the recycled polymer
extrusion machinery maker Bandera has devel- oped solutions using its RevoTech Twin extrusion system capable of recycling barrier materials with high percentages of EVOH and PA (as much as 30% PA, for example). Output is said to be suitable for use in thin films. Bandera says in-house testing using post-indus-
trial scrap from high-barrier film production has shown the suitability of the use of the recyclate in various types of films at levels right up to 100%. Odour was practically absent from the new film, the company says, despite the presence of EVOH and PA. It attributes this to the highly effective degas- sing and processing capabilities of the RevoTech Twin equipment. For companies that regularly recycle packaging
films, Bandera has developed its RevoTech “VOC and Odour Removal” systems. These use a propri- etary energy-efficient microwave technology to reduce odour to levels that it says traditional single- screw or high-speed twin-screws cannot reach. The purification process typically takes a couple of hours and can be performed on batches of granules that have been cooled after granulation. In August this year, Starlinger Recycling
Technology received two “Letters of No Objection” from the FDA covering its HDPE food grade recycling technologies, including odour reduction. The LNOs state that post-consumer recycled HDPE regranulate produced using Starlinger’s recycling process is suitable for food-contact applications at levels of up to 100 % recycled content. This applies for its HDPE bottle-to-bottle and HDPE cap-to-cap recycling processes. The HDPE regranulate can be used for food-contact packaging such as milk and
www.plasticsrecyclingworld.com
IMAGE: EREMA
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