TECHNOLOGY | RECYCLING LINES
Above: Coperion launched its Recycling Innovation Centre in Weingarten, Germany in 2023
be conveyed, fed, extruded, compounded, pelletised and deodorised. The new centre works in a complementary way with the Herbold centre in Meckesheim to simulate and test the recycling of plastics. At AMI’s Plastics Recycling World Expo in Brussels in September, Florian Mitterecker, Sales Manager at Starlinger Recycling Technology, presented new technology from the Austrian group. The ViscoZERO technology from the Starlinger group’s Viscotec business unit is a melt phase decontamination reactor that has been designed for supercleaning post-consumer waste.
Supercleaning At the event, Mitterecker dicussed ViscoZERO used in a line comprising extrusion, decontamination and odour-reduction units for post-consumer PP, PE or PS food packaging waste, producing regran- ulate that can be reused in the production of food-contact packaging. He focused specifically on how the system can meet the needs of polyolefins consumers wanting to use recyclate in packaging loops such as cap-to-cap and bottle-to-bottle, but also in other demanding areas such as automotive. The recycling system consists of a Starlinger
RecoSTAR Dynamic recycling extruder with or without degassing, a continuous melt filter or power-backflush filter, the ViscoZERO melt phase decontamination reactor, a subsequent belt melt
filter or power backflush filter before the underwa- ter or water ring pelletiser, and an optional PCUplus pellet flusher at the end of the process. This modular approach, said Mitterecker, is intended to meet the varying needs of customers. Customers may want different modules, he said, which Starlinger expects to learn more about as production data comes back from the first three lines that have been sold (the first was installed at an Austrian customer). The first tests during development were carried out on PET packaging, but it was notable what happened with other polymers. In testing the ViscoZERO system with PP, PE and PS, it did “much better than expected”, said Mitterecker. The results were strong enough that Starlinger has applied to the FDA in the US for approval for the system to be used for PP caps (approval was pending in Septem- ber). The company hopes to also get FDA approval for the system when processing HDPE and PS. “With this new machine setup we present a
super-cleaning solution for post-consumer packag- ing made of polyolefins such as PP and PE or polystyrene at this year’s NPE,” said Paul Niedl, Commercial Head of Starlinger Recycling Technol- ogy, before the US exhibition earlier this year. “Especially PP, PS and HDPE post-consumer packaging waste degrades during recycling; thus, the produced material can only be used in lower- grade applications. With the new technology, the material is upgraded in the process and thus suitable for use in high-grade applications includ- ing direct food-contact packaging.”
Bottles and more The ongoing growth of the PET industry, especially in Asia and Africa, is boosting the demand for recycling solutions across the board. Austrian recycling machine manufacturer Erema says in the last three years alone, it has delivered 100 systems for the bottle market. Almost 60% of these are bottle-to-bottle solutions, while the rest are divided between bottle-to-sheet, PET strapping, and the growing bottle-to-fibre
Starlinger recycling line featuring RecoSTAR Dynamic recycling extruder, the new ViscoZERO melt phase decontamination reactor, melt filter, pelletiser and PCUplus pellet flusher
14 PLASTICS RECYCLING WORLD | October 2024
IMAGE: COPERION
IMAGE: STARLINGER
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