Virgin - PE, PP, PS - Aaron Industries Corp

Plastics Technology, 2004-03-25, Big German Plant May Relieve U.S. Bottleneck in Recycling Carpet Nylon
...ets are piling up in the U.S. due to lack of capacity for chemical recycling of the nylon back into virgin resin for automotive and other uses. At the same time, the German carpet recycling plant is r...

Kunststoffe international, Avoiding Shutdowns
...a company processing polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Deposits in Injection Molds In one of its factories, a corporate group produces preforms for PET bottles on several injection-molding machines. The preforms are made from PET regrind and virgin material and subsequently supplied to the group’s beverage plants, where they are blow molded into new bottles. The injection molds hold between 72 and 128 cavities (Title figure). During the operating time, despite water treatment and chemical coolin...

Kunststoffe international, Easier to Reach the Destination
... end-of-life recovery or recycling of materials. Focus must lie on the total CO2 footprint when assessing sustainable mobility. Borealis was one of the first virgin polyolefin suppliers to launch a range of dedicated PP compound solutions that include post-consumer recyclate (PCR) and which can be used in automotive applications. The Daplen compounds originally launched in 2014 have in the meantime been rebranded as Borcycle. The current portfolio includes three proven high-quality compounds con...

Kunststoffe international, From Fishing Net to Particle Foam
...try. The Danish company Plastix ‧recycles old fishing nets and ropes. The granules produced are used by JSP International, among others, to manufacture expanded polypropylene (EPP). This results in a 7 % reduction in CO2 emissions compared to ‧virgin material. In order to obtain the same properties as virgin material, the recyclates must meet strict requirements. This requires a precise analysis of the waste in the recycling process and strict quality control. The fight against climate change a...

Kunststoffe international, From the Sea to Electronics
... be used in different high-end applications such as automotive (transportation), and electronic and electrical equipment. Challenges in Developing and Using Compounds Based on Ocean Bound PET Compared to virgin resins, recycled plastics are in-consistent in properties and contaminated with other plastics. Therefore, the key to produce engineering compounds using such sources is steady feedstock, high technology sorting, processing, quality control and the use of excellent additives. There were s...

Kunststoffe international, New Normals
...building up circular material flows. We can already see the results. The recently published “Material Flow Analysis Plastics in Germany” shows, for example, that, before the Covid 19 crisis, recyclates were increasingly replacing virgin materials. Of course, these advances are by no means sufficient. Not nearly enough recycled material is being consumed for that. In addition, the building up of the circular ‧material flows and implementation of chemical recycling are often still in their infanc...

Kunststoffe international, Polypropylene Beats Aluminum
... can be comminuted and used in the production of new components instead of an injection molding masterbatch. The regrind is blended with virgin PP on the injection molding machine to produce PP-GF30 or PP-GF40. This ensures a sustainable material loop, which has been validated by two studies carried out at Rosenheim University of Applied Sciences (TH Rosenheim), Germany [1].

Kunststoffe international, Present in a Multitude of Trends
...ly from renewable sources such as used and residual oils and fats. The more sustainable PC raw materials are added to the existing PC production as a drop-in replacement. The resulting PC products have the same quality as virgin PC and can therefore be used directly by processors in existing processes. Bio-Based Raw Materials for PC A current example of a recyclable material cycle based on used plastics is the recycling of PC from 5-gallon water bottles (equivalent to 19 l) within the framework...

Kunststoffe international, Recycling that Gets under the Skin
...tial for using reprocessed plastic wastes even for plastic parts that are subject to strict requirements for surface quality, product protection or consumer safety. The key: to place the recycled material in the interior while the surface is made of virgin material. Engel has developed a variant of sandwich injection molding that allows high proportions of recycled material to be used even with complex part geometries. In its Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy and Circular Economy Actio...

Kunststoffe international, The Role of Chemistry in Plastics Recycling
...he production of polymers such as PET, PA, polycarbonate (PC) and polyurethane (PU) [11]. With proper process control, these can be produced to a high level of purity and incorporated into the polycondensation stage of virgin material production. However, the ‘reversing’ reactions place high demands on the purity of the plastic waste to be processed, because secondary reactions with foreign polycondensates would affect the purity of the monomers produced. These processes have been around for a l...

Kunststoffe international, Turning Old into New
... post-consumer polystyrene to be depolymerized continuously and efficiently. This opens up a promising recycling route in terms of industrial implementation via renewed polymer synthesis to produce plastic granules with a quality approaching that of virgin material. Polystyrene is used to produce a wide variety of food packaging and also for thermal insulation in construction. Especially in the packaging sector, it is often a short-lived disposable product that is disposed of immediately after u...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, A Contradiction in Terms?
...d composites might in any case offer a more cost-effective solution. Long-fibre-reinforced thermoplastics can already be recycled today without damaging the fibres. They give rise to recyclates with a similar level of properties to the corresponding virgin material. With regard to recycling natural-fibre-containing thermoplastics (PP), one feasible way at least would be to compound the recyclates in injection moulding compounds with natural-fibre reinforcement. There are already markets for this...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, A Home Game for the Italian Plastics Industry: Rendezvous in Milan
...quipped with a screen-changing device and a die-face pelletiser. E-Trim is the name for the new unit from Gamma Meccanica, Bibbiano, that can return scrap back to the production line. The granules are of the same quality as granules of virgin material. The recycled material can therefore be processed in volumetric or gravimetric feed systems. Gamma Meccanica will also launch a granulating system that reduces the amount of scrap produced during start-up and product changes, along with a new mixi...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Agglomerating Units: Gentle Recycling
...popular use of PET bottles has opened up another area of application for this agglomeration technique. The cleansed bottles are fed to the unit and the recovered feedstock is used either for the production of packaging tape or as a surrogate for virgin material used in flat film extrusion lines, without the need for post-production crystallisation. Moreover, the unit can be used as a dryer reducing the residual moisture content of post-consumer film to below the critical level of 1%. The drying...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Airbag Module in PA 6 Recyclate
...depolymerisation of the polyamide into monomer caprolactam after use and reutilisation in the synthesis of new macromolecules. This PA 6 regrind will then offer the same chemical and mechanical properties as new PA 6, being fully equivalent to the virgin material. Opel's raw material supplier, Honeywell, is now offering a repolymerised PA 6 from post-consumer waste for the first time. This has the designation "Infinity" and is produced by a depolymerisation process. It meets the stri...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Anniversary: Excellence in Compounding Technology
...ther with the increased speed from 300 to 750rpm, this allows the throughput to be increased by two to three times for the same size. Direct Processing Applications Non-predried PET film or bottle regrind, mixed in any proportions with PET virgin material and PET recyclate (flakes), can be directly processed into film or fibres. Precise temperature control in the ZSK and the highly efficient vacuum degassing of residual moisture and oligomers keep thermal degradation to a minimum (intrinsic vi...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Attractive New World of Packaging
...he unit is based on the proven Index technology for injection moulding and a servo-driven blow moulding unit. It offers a flexible mould matrix for neck widths up to 110mm and container sizes up to 160mm. “This is virgin territory for us”, says David Cook. We introduced the prototype at K 2001. It is the ideal machine for the production of wide-necked bottles. After all, the market for this kind of machines is worth around 300 million USD a year. Basically, only the Japanese company Aoki and the...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Blown Film Extrusion Today
...k or Maillefer shearing elements and the CTM mixing element from Rapra Technology Ltd of Shrewsbury/UK, there are also new developments such as the CRD mixer (Fig. 2) from The Madison Group, Madison/USA and the Fluxion mixer from Robert Barr Inc., Virginia/USA. These claim to supply a uniformly mixed, thermally homogeneous melt, even at high plasticizing rates, and to keep melt temperature under good control. Like the mixing elements, screw designs, too, are being continually improved. Examples ...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Case Study (5): Hot-Runner Solution for a Four-Gang Switch Plate
...sential The four-gang wall frame is available in three colours – white, electric white and charcoal (Fig.2). Further design variants are manufactured by subsequent painting in aluminium tones. It is essential to use a hot-runner system, since only virgin material can be used for production. Any regrind content would be inadmissible because of the strict quality demands on the product appearance. The high surface quality of the face surfaces is an absolute demand, since any defects in injection m...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Centralized Supply for 59 Injection Moulding Machines
...The separated-out fines fall into a dust collector. The injection moulding machines were equipped with proportioning and feed stations, type MFG 200 (Fig. 5), including proportioning attachments for the alternative conveying of two components, i. e. virgin material and regrind. Each proportioning attachment has two inlet spigots with wear-protected check flaps operated optionally by means of compressed air cylinders. The inlet spigots can easily be exchanged by loosening the screw connections. P...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Coloured PPVC Films: Colour Makes the Difference
...s, so that even after only 4000h exposure time they nearly or completely fail to achieve the reduced values specified by the DIN material standard. On the other hand, all the dark-coloured samples maintain the value level required for virgin material throughout the exposure period. In the case of samples 5 and 6, an increase in ultimate tensile strength values due to the high weight losses can be determined. With the mid-grey samples, the increase in ultimate tensile strength due to weight losse...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Combined Process: Foamed Parts with Excellent Surface Quality
...e skin and core material may be different, which results in an injection moulding with special properties. It is also advantageous for cost reasons, in the case of relatively large parts, to use a combination of recyclate for the core, and virgin material to provide an immaculate surface [3]. For example, assuming a 35% recyclate content and that the price for recyclate is 50% that of virgin material, the material cost saving is 17.5%. A fibre-reinforced core with a coating of soft skin materia...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Compression Moulding of Long-fibre-reinforced Plastics
...ion, blanks or the additional heating operation up about 220°C. Another major advantage of the process is that the cutout pieces (about 1 kg/component) continually being generated in water-jet cutting can be immediately recycled and blended with virgin material and so processed into new parts. In the same way, used parts can be supplied to this recycling process. At the end of July 1997, after completion of extensive tests, VW gave approval for the part to be released for series production a...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Continued Strong Growth: PET in Beverage Packaging
... recycling process was approved by the FDA in 1998. This process involves washing, regranulation and post-condensation. One plant has been installed in Emmen/Netherlands. The product is marketed under the name Ecoclear, as a mixture of 75 % virgin material and 25% recyclate. The annual capacity for this product is 30000 t. All in all, bottle-to-bottle recycling capacity for PET has increased dramatically in Europe over the past few years. Further recycling processes are additionally being devel...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Costs and Benefits: Recycling Plastics from Electrical and Electronic Products
...k E. Mark Costs and Benefits. Plastics recycling can only be economic if the resulting recyclates are attractive to the market. For this to be the case, they must meet certain minimum specifications at a price that is significantly below that of the virgin material. Conservation of resources, avoidance of landfill disposal and minimisation of environmental impact are the main objectives in the treatment of waste plastics from whatever application sector. The options to be considered cannot just...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Cutting Costs
...ics reinforced with short glass fibres, for example, this shortens the fibre length. Since regrind passes through these operations several times, expectations with regard to the properties of the reprocessed material must be lowered as compared with virgin material. To confine the property losses to an acceptable range, regrind is therefore processed in blends with virgin material. Many manufacturers of high-quality engineering components regard the use of regrind in processing very critically o...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Detecting Contaminants: Product Safety in the PET Loop
...id chromatography (LC) was devised to characterise the additive status of extracts. The detector employed is a UV detector or a mass spectrometer (MS). LC(MS), in particular, offers enormous potential in view of the complex active content of virgin PET resin (UV stabilisers, acetaldehyde blockers etc, that can lead to yellowing during recycling). Separation and molar-mass determination of high-molecular extraneous polymers and inert (usually inorganic) interferences are mainly accomplished with...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Development Strategy and Environmental Protection: DuPont - Growing with Engineering Plastics
... manufacture of Zytel polyamide with a capacity of 10000t per annum in Shenzhen, China, in March 2004 - a polyacetal (POM) production plant in China with a capacity of 20000t per annum, which will go on stream in June 2004 - a plant in Richmond, Virginia, USA, with a capacity of 13700t per annum, which will more than double global capacity for manufacture of the basic polymer for the high-performance polyamide Zytel HTN and will commence operation during the course of this year - acquisition ...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Development Trends: Extrusion Blow-moulded Automotive Components
...duced on suction blow moulding machines with a 1 l accumulator head. The machines are normally equipped with an abrasion-resistant barrel and a hardened three-section screw (25d) with a maximum diameter of between 60mm and 80mm. The PA6.6 virgin material needs to be dried prior to processing. Due to its tendency for easy oxidation, the material is not suitable for welding. Therefore, applications with pinch-off flash have not been achieved as yet. This may be remedied by the use of inert gases i...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Drive and Applications Technology: All-Electric Broadside
...g test conditions were defined: - least possible cycle times, - adjustment of comparable process parameters, - use of identical temperature control equipment and tubing, - use of the same mass-production material (80 % virgin, 20 % regrind) with the same predrying, and - identical storage times of the parts before measurement. The test sequence was designed to take into account all the production situations occurring in practice, e.g. renewed start-up processes. Production ran for a particu...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Economical PET Recycling
...s been good during the first operating year, thanks to demonstrably high product quality and competitive prices. The operating strategy makes recycling of scrap bottles to re-usable chips possible at prices which were below the retail prices for PET virgin product, even despite the difficult trading conditions of the past years. Consistently Homogeneous Product Quality Despite strong variation in incoming grades with their varying initial viscosities, consistently homogeneous product quality w...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Efficiency in a Highly Compact Space
...r the machinery used up until then. Twelve new silos with a capacity of 90 m3 were acquired. Each day, around three of the total of 25 silos are completely re-filled with PP. From here, the material passes through drying stations, segregated into virgin material and regrind, and then on to the injection moulding machines. The particular masterbatch used in each case is added at the machine. This is performed by a metering station on each machine, which has metering axles for PP homopolymer, PP c...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Flat-film Extrusion Lines
...ow thermal stressing of the raw material. Indirect methods produce free-flowing material from edge trim or inferior-quality film reels by pelletization or compacting. The recycled material - possibly after intermediate storage - is then blended with virgin material via the feed system. The recycling ratio is thus limited only by quality considerations. The storage stability of the recycled edge trim is an advantage. The additional thermal stressing of the raw material and additional technical an...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, General-purpose Plastics: Appearance Ever More Important
...hieve coloured, transparent records, and even phosphorising variants are available. Another key topic is the recycling of PVC waste. Solvin presented a process called VinyLoop at K. The PVC recycled in this way is equivalent to virgin material. An initial facility has been constructed in Ferrara/Italy. This is designed to process cable insulation material in particular and has an annual capacity of 10000t recovered PVC. Vinyloop Ferrara is a joint venture of Solvin, Adriaplast, Tecnometal and V...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Granules and Recyclate: Direct Processing of PET without Pre-drying
...– is treated and recycled in-house, but large quantities of washed, sorted regrind material are also coming out of the consumer cycle, and are being traded as recyclate for subsequent processing. Instead of Pre-drying and Sorting ... Even with virgin material, pre-drying is of eminent importance in the conventional processing of PET on single screw extruders. PET is hygroscopic and very quickly absorbs the equilibrium moisture of 1000–3300ppm water (depending on the particular product). But pr...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, High Output or Flexibility?
...er design. For this reason, it is state of the art to produce window profiles by coextrusion. Regrind can then be used for surfaces that are concealed from view, while for the outer layers, the profile can be covered with a thin layer of coextruded virgin material. In setting up a coextrusion line, several variants are possible. In the normal case, a parallel twin-screw extruder is used as the main machine, with a conical twin-screw extruder as the coextruder. Another option for increasing outpu...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, High-quality Recycling
...self, Leis has been recycling high-quality materials such as PES, PSU, LCP, PEEK, PPS and many others since 1994. Through gentle pelletization and the use of special additives, the recyclates in many cases attain virtually the same properties as the virgin material. Right from the moment the "scrap" is supplied in the form of reject parts, sprues and runners or regrind, care is taken to retain the excellent condition of the starting product. This is irrespective of whether the material i...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Impressive Variety: Polysulfones (PSU, PESU, PPSU)
...and 400°C (mould temperature 120 to 190°C). Because of the outstanding thermal stability of sulfone polymers, processing residues can be recycled and repelletised without difficulty, and after drying be processed once again together with virgin material. It should be noted, however, that to avoid quality fluctuations during production the amount of reclaimed material should not exceed 25%. Care must also be taken to not mix different resin types. The Authors Dr. Stefan Göttgens, born in 1960, ...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Improved Efficiency and Quality
...d, combinations of parallel basic extruders and one or two conical "piggyback"" extruders (also known as "space savers"") are used (Fig. 9). While the basic extruder compounds the recyclate, the coextruder(s) process the virgin material. Conical extruders up to a screw diameter of 50 mm (at the screw end) can easily be mounted above the main extruder so as to be adjustable in two axes. If higher output rates for the coextruder are required, they must be located next to th...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, In the Injection Moulding Microcosm
...ine by means of a 5mm injection ram. Any standard pellet moulding compounds can be used, and stress-free plastication and back pressure-controlled metering can be achieved in the low-pressure range (maximum 1.1cm³). Every shot is metered with virgin raw material to a precision of 1mm³. The injection unit has reached preset injection speed, maximum 760mm/s, before the thermally homogeneous material is injected. The braking volume of the injection system is about 2mm³ at 250mm/s, an...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Inflow Behaviour in Single-screw Extruders
...rocesses is virtually limitless. They may be divided roughly on the basis of polymer type and particle shape. Four polymers will be used here to illustrate the influence exerted by the material. They are: two typically spherical polymers (PP and PE, virgin material), regrind and recyclate. The regrind consists of irregularly shaped comminuted particles. The recyclate is shredded material from the waste industry. It has additionally been mixed with spherical virgin material. The four materials di...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Influence of Processing on the Degradation of PA and PP
...lex degradation behaviour of polyamides - chain-scission and chain-crosslinking reactions as well as post-condensation - the molecular-weight-dependent characteristics are difficult to interpret. Generally, the viscosity values are higher than in virgin material. The MFR value is both higher and lower and is much higher - similar to the discoloration - in the case of extensive degradation. Since the dwell times are short, it must be assumed that an increase in the viscosity number, especially un...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Integrated Solutions
...e is already being made of polyolefins today. Additives such as Recyclostab or Recycloblend provide support in the recycling of bumpers, battery cases and petrol tanks, making it possible to achieve virtually the same properties as in virgin material. Figure 5 compares the properties of painted bumpers in new material with those made of recycled material. When the bumpers are being recycled, most of the old paint is removed, but it is not feasible to eliminate all of it. This residual component ...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Market Report (2): A Year to Forget
Market Report (2): A Year to Forget Consumption of plastics in Italy in 2002 was considerably lower than in previous years, with virgin material growing by just 1.4%. Growth in the use of recycled materials was hampered by a shortage of recyclable materials in the first few months and then by a decline in the prices of the raw materials later in the year. These are the conclusions reached in a market study conducted by Plastic Consult. The economic situation in Italy continued to deteriorate...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Material Recycling of Thermoplastic FPC
...e calculation. In the worst case, therefore, extra personnel are necessary. A further possibility is the use of large punched parts as semi-finished goods for smaller parts. If a company already has a production line in which these parts can replace virgin material, then the worst case involves costs for additional personnel and machinery for sawing the punched parts to size. The calculation also allows for non-recyclable cuttings of 20 wt. %. The data used to calculate the recycling costs of Va...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Material supply: Storage, Conveying and Metering
...: - the specified continuous mass flow (kg/h) of plastics raw material and other formulation components must be guaranteed; - the requisite mixing ratios and mixing tolerances must be achieved in cases where more than one component is involved (e.g. virgin material, regrind and masterbatch); - the prescribed residual moisture content must be observed, without inadmissible fluctuation; - soiling or foreign bodies in the product flow must be avoided; - contamination of the production environment ...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Materials Recycling
...hose for the mineral fillers they are replacing, which is why recycling is not economically viable here. Glycolysis involves breaking down polyurethanes with the addition of glycol and additives. The resultant polyol is suitable for re-use by adding virgin polyol; it can then be crosslinked with isocyanate to produce new polyurethane. Each of these three steps almost doubles the amount of material, which means that 5-8 kg recyclate product is created from 1 kg of scrap. In the production of flak...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Melt Filtration: High-quality Materials from PET Recycling
...e extremely rapid growth in the consumption of PET bottles, coupled with improvements in the collection system and changes in European legislation are opening up new possibilities and challenges for the rapidly-expanding recycling sector. Replacing virgin material by recycled material ("bottle flakes") makes economic and process-engineering sense for a whole range of products. These include staple fibre, cast film and thermoforming products, non-woven fibre, packaging tape, masterbatches...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Melt Filtration: Making Nonwoven Fabrics from Bottle Flakes
...em. Monika Gneuss The increasing use of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) for bottles and the steadily improving collection system are resulting in a growing supply of PET in the form of bottle flakes. This material, either on its own or added to virgin material, provides an inexpensive starting material for the production of nonwoven fabrics. However, even the most advanced recycling technology cannot prevent insoluble impurities remaining in the recycled PET stream. As in every other field,...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Multi-component Moulds: More Colour and More Functions
...lementary properties, thereby ensuring that full advantage is obtained of the positive properties of the two materials in the composite part and that the negative properties are largely suppressed. A number of typical applications are given below: - virgin/recyclate combinations are used preferentially for big, voluminous parts. The virgin material has a decorative colour while the recyclate of the same material used for the core material can be in different colours. - where parts are subject to...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, News
...Desmodur N surface coating resins in Caojing since April 2003. A production plant for Desmodur L with an annual capacity of 11000 tonnes will come on stream at the end of 2004. Construction work on a plant for polymer and monomer MDI made from virgin MDI – a so called splitter – and the related freight management facilities is to be completed by mid-2006. The splitter will have an initial capacity of 80000t/a. A potential second expansion stage involving a production site for virgin MDI with an ...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, One Step Closer to Nature
...in Germany. These EPDM artificial turf infill granules are newly-produced EPDM granules made from flawless raw materials, which thus provide a homogeneous product with a precisely-defined composition. Apart from the ecological aspects, the use of virgin EPDM granules also has a direct economic impact. This becomes clear when the disposal costs are also included in the overall costing for the infill material. If recyclate is used instead of new material, then, when a pitch is to be removed, costl...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Optimisation of Screws with Small L/D Ratio: Custom-made Screws
...ets (Fig.2). To achieve ready screw filling in the feed zone, the pellets must fit completely into the screw flight. Where regrind or recyclate is used, there may be fluctuations in metering times due to the different melting behaviour compared with virgin material, but also as a result of individual coarse grains and the non-uniform particle size distribution. Influence of Hopper is Usually Negligible A reduction in plastication rate because the hopper discharge port is too small can be ruled ...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Optimum Drying of Pellet Stock
...ines with moving plasticising units. Drying alongside the machine takes up a large amount of floor space. On material exchange, the require purging and cleaning causes downtimes with all drying processes. For direct supply of dried virgin material with dry-air drying, the required amount of pellet stock can be predried in a mobile auxiliary dryer. It is also possible to exchange the hopper for one containing predried pellet stock (Fig.8). The time required for providing dried material depends on...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, PET Boom: PET Recycling and Direct Processing
... as the market for beverage packs, which is why a certain level of saturation is to be expected [3]. Another possible field of application for the recyclate is in multi-layer bottles, where direct food contact is avoided by layers of virgin material. In some countries, food contact with recyclate is banned by law. Really, however, the aforementioned applications do not involve true recycling, more a “downcycling”, because the material completely loses its suitability for food-contact application...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, PET in Packaging
...ling is about to take off in Europe. The impetus for this development has come about because of the ability with PET to enhance the material and processing properties of the product during the recycling process so that it has the same quality as the virgin material again. Market Development with PET The use of PET in packaging can be roughly divided into three areas: Oriented film, thermoforming film and containers. In volume terms, containers are ahead of film, in accordance with the ratio of...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Pipe and Profile Extrusion Dies
...case of the disc-segment die, the fine adjustment is carried out by wire EDM or manual filing. Coextrusion as an Ecological Alternative Alternative options that are both ecologically and economically attractive are coextruded main window profiles. Virgin material is used for the outer layer in order to achieve the required weathering resistance and colour and light fastness. The inner layer may be a cheaper material or even regrind. The Battenfeld Schwarz coextrusion die, thanks to separately ...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Plastics Handling in Extrusion
... pellets flows at too high a rate through elbows. The problem can be solved by choosing a more suitable vacuum generator or changing the elbow geometry or elbow material. At a very early stage, Koch-Technik developed conveyors that could convey both virgin material and regrind. Regrind materials can thus be used right from the start. For multiple delivery points, it is advisable to use the centralised conveyor system (Fig. 1). The necessary conveyors are combined, and a centralised vacuum genera...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Polyethylene Tanks: Contaminated Plastics in a Closed Material Loop
...antages when it comes to closing the material loop, since the owner pays for the dismantling and disposal. If the disposal costs are included in the calculation, the closed material loop currently incurs costs of the same order of magnitude as virgin PE-HD. If the prices of virgin material increase further and the costs of disposal continue to rise, then the system that has been developed will constitute an alternative to the current disposal solution in economic terms too. The assumption that t...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Polyoxymethylene (Polyacetals, POM)
...o the production process. However, cleaning and sorting POM is very expensive. The feasibility of this concept has been proven by Ticona with a research plant. In mechanical recycling, regrind from pure, sorted POM production waste is added to the virgin material in specified amounts, as permitted by the part. Another possibility is to produce POM recyclates. For this purpose, homogeneously collected scrap parts and production waste are ground and compounded. The properties lie below those of vi...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC)
...oods flow will change significantly. Effects will be seen wherever PVC, in its search for purchasers, encounters uncompetitive cost structures. Recycling initiatives have advanced furthest in Western Europe, with the result that growth potential for virgin material in this region is limited by growing volumes of recyclate. The PVC business is characterised by high dependence on the construction industry (about 60 %). Business prospects will improve to the extent to which the construction industr...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Pressure Filter Test: Quality Recipe for High-quality Masterbatches
...30 minutes), its free space declines and the pressure in front of the filter increases. A sensor measures the maximum pressure that occurred during the measurement (pmax). The rise in pressure that occurs on pigment addition, relative to the virgin material, can now be used to make inferences about the quality of the masterbatch. The filter pressure value (FPV) is calculated by dividing the pressure difference between the start and finish of the measurement by the mass of added pigment (mpig): F...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Quality Assurance Through Thermal Analysis
...ades. Recycling of POM As POM is a relatively expensive engineering polymer, it makes good economic sense to use recycled material. From the viewpoint of the raw materials producer, it is acceptable to add up to 30 % recycled material to processed virgin material. However, this figure does not reveal any of the possible changes to the final product quality. Our mechanical tests of the tensile properties of samples of 100 % recycled material of POM copolymer (MFR = 9 g/10 min) revealed no signi...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Radiation-induced Crosslinking: Crosslinked PA6 for Circuit Carriers
Electronics Crosslinked PA6 for Circuit Carriers Radiation-induced Crosslinking. By post-crosslinking with an electron beam, it is possible to prevent engineering thermoplastics such as polyamide 6 from softening or melting. A definite improvement in the stability during soldering is the result. The crosslinking of plastics provides a very effective method for modifying the properties of engineering thermoplastics, particularly with regard to the current lead problem for the production of circui...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Recycled CRP as Reinforcement for Thermoplastics
...ing were performed on cured, shredded, ground CRP material supplied by Daimler Benz Aerospace (DASA), cleaned up by Hadeg-Recycling GmbH. Two volume fractions were processed. Starting with a 40 wt. % glass fibre fraction, the weight fractions of the virgin carbon fibres and of the CRP regrind were calculated (Table 1). Experimental Procedures Chemical decomposition: This was performed in a round-bottom flask fitted with a reflux condenser. Treatment consisted in refluxing the sample with conce...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Recycling and Granulating: Material Cycle Closed
...its Peelomat system, Untha Recyclingtechnik GmbH, Karlstadt/Germany, employs a patented process to strip the coatings and metal layers from CDs. The process reclaims up to 90% of the incoming polycarbonate, which, after addition of a small amount of virgin material, can be reused to produce new CDs. The thermal load accompanying recycling of production waste such as runners, for instance, can lead to lower material properties as the result of a decrease in molecular weight. Hellweg Maschinenbau...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Recycling of PVC/PET Composites
...stages in the process. Technical Characterization The PVC and PET products are pure and homogeneous within the terms of ISO 1043 parts 1 to 4, and are free of contaminants [1]. The residual thermal stability is reduced by about 26 % compared with virgin material. This is the result of degradation of the thermal stabilizers by the repeated melting process, and can be offset by further additives. In the early investigations, a compound with virgin material was produced and compared with pure vir...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Recycling: Drinks from the Detergent Bottle
...d concentration levels. The results are shown in Table3. Even at the highest contamination level of 1000ppm, the IVV found that 12 hours SSP yielded a cleaning efficiency of >99.8% for each model substance in the end product. Compared with virgin PET material, the studies show that the recyclate samples of the end products have a comparable fraction of migratable substances. Only substances contained in virgin PET resin as well were detected. A look at the various cleaning stages of the Super-C...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Reducing Cooling Time with Water-assisted Injection Moulding
...ction moulding trials carried on various materials (PP, PA) from the firm Schulman GmbH, Kerpen/Germany. For testing the GAIM and WIT processes at IKV, test moulds were used with component diameters of 10-60 mm. This article presents the results for virgin PP and PP with 30 % glass fibres for a pipe component of 30 mm diameter [14]. Preliminary Trials and Simulation Fig. 3 shows calculated temperature curves of the mean temperature of the outer layer of such pipe specimens of virgin PP and PP ...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Sandwich Moulding Technology: Exact Distribution of the Core Material
...isk) have shown [3], in principle it is even possible to achieve 75%. Assuming that material costs account for 50% of manufacturing costs and that by using recyclates as the core material a price advantage of 50% is gained in comparison with virgin material, then a core material content of 40% reduces manufacturing costs by about 10%. If the core material content were increased to 75%, the manufacturing costs could be cut by 19%. Improvements to the mould can never achieve such results. Simulat...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Somewhat Cooler in the South
...stics industry did not grow as much last year as the growth in gross domestic product would suggest. Higher raw materials prices, in particular, had an effect and meant that processors had to pay roughly 30 % more in 2000 than in 1999. Less and less virgin material is being consumed in Italy, a trend that has been going on some years now (Kunststoffe 4/2000). In 2000, consumption of virgin material only rose by 3.7 %, and thus lagged behind the 4.5 % growth in 1999. Processors took extensive adv...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Stabilization - Doping for Recyclates
...m trials on materials aged under real conditions and those aged artificially. Consequently, for this study, it seemed logical to compare the examined materials with a reference material having proven long-term stability. For this reason, a reference virgin product was included in the heat-ageing and weathering tests in accordance with the targeted application conditions of the recyclate. In the case of the heat-ageing test, this was a heat-stabilized PP with a talc content of 20 % used in the ve...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Synergy: mpm also Shows its Strengths in Extrusion Technology
...-sensitive PET material can be optimally processed at low speeds. Berstorff’s ZE twin-screw extruders can process a broad range of PET materials: From end-of-use PET packaging and production scrap to the processing of virgin PET material, e.g. for direct extrusion into films or fibres. Portrait 1. Graziano Parisi, Managing Director Krauss-Maffei Kunststofftechnik GmbH Portrait 2. Manfred Reichel, Managing Director Berstorff GmbH Fig. 1. XS extruder from Krauss-Maffei for economical pipe and ...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Technology Survey: Melt Filters for Compounding Polymers
...s a greater or lesser impact depending on the application: when polyolefins are recycled, this aspect is doubtless of less importance than it is in the processing of sensitive melts, such as PVC, and in the processing of virgin material. It is also the case that high-performance filtration with a large overall screen surface, a backflush mechanism and a large remaining active screen surface during the backflush operation is coupled with a deterioration in the channel layout. Contamination Elimi...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, The Crucial Question in Fire Protection
...s at GE Plastics Europe, Bergen op Zoom/Netherlands. Contact: francois.debie@gepex.ge.com Fig.1. Plug made from flame-resistant, glassfibre-reinforced (PS+PPO) blend Table 1. Typical properties of PBT-GF30 containing flame retardant as virgin material and containing 50% recyclate of the same material Table 2. Amorphous polymers containing non-halogen flame retardants Table 3. Semicrystalline polymers containing non-halogen flame retardants Table 4. Typical properties of Noryl GTX 4110 con...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, The PVC Loop Closed
...n with other materials to form useful composite products. Examples are cables, films, tarpaulins and floor coverings. In these applications, the PVC is in the company of copper, aluminium, polyester and glassfibres. A total amount of about 4,000 kt virgin PVC is consumed annually and is essentially distributed over five application areas (calculated as PVC compound, excluding the other materials) (Fig. 1). Figure 2 shows the estimated quantity of waste still mainly finding its way to landfill. T...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, Wood extrusion: Wood from the Extruder
... polypropylene (PP), high-density polyethylene (HDPE), low-density polyethylene (LDPE), polystyrene (PS) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) are normally preferred for wood extrusion. PP plays the biggest role in this. It has the advantage that both virgin material and recyclate can be used. Furthermore, the flow properties of the matrix change in proportion to the wood content, making it necessary to adapt the process parameters. A tricky point is the plasticising of the plastic because this can damag...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-11-21, “It Depends on the Part”
...In the process involving several plastic components, a distinction must be made between the injection of two and more polymers, composite coinjection and multicomponent injection moulding. Identical and different materials (rigid/soft, virgin material/regrind, colour1/colour2 etc.) can be combined together. Depending on the process, this leads to different functional and optical properties. An example of overmoulding is illustrated in Fig.10. Here, it is used for the production of three-colour c...

Kunststoffe international, 2005-12-07, Pipe Extrusion: The 36D Process Concept Opens up New Potential
...has been found that the specific throughput cannot be kept constant when the screw speed is increased. A decrease in the specific throughput is usually observed [2]. This decrease is often described as non-linearity of the output and, in the case of virgin material, can be up to 15%. It is a result of the plastic granule trickling into the screw chamber [3, 4]. However, the phenomenon of non-linearity must not be confused with the phenomenon of the screw speed limit. The phenomenon of the screw ...

Kunststoffe international, 2006-01-25, PET Recycling: Higher Profitability due to Inline Crystallisation
...ombine the Vacurema technology with a newly developed type of inline crystallisation so that the user may also produce directly crystallised pellets, making external crystallisation unnecessary. A Demanding Project On the world market, 80–90% of virgin PET material is offered in the form of strand pellets. This type of material has numerous advantages, both during its transport behaviour in carrier bags and during processing in grooved infeed bushings of extruders, but the process also deliver...

Kunststoffe international, 2006-03-23, Packaging Recycling: From Bottle to Bottle
...r, PET contains very few additives and so there are no problems to be expected from this point of view. PET bottles have additionally long been recycled on an industrial scale (Fig. 1). Post-consumer, recycled PET is actually often superior to virgin PET from a foodstuffs point of view. The reason for this is to be found in the nature of the additional decontamination or “super-clean” recycling processes. These have extremely high cleaning efficiencies that remove not only undesirable substances...

Kunststoffe international, 2006-04-25, TPU Processing Aids: Polyethylene Extrusion without Melt Fracture
.... 1. Comparison between the G1/G2 ratios of two PE-LLD products blended with different TPU polymer processing aids (lubricants and adhesives) Flow behaviour Fig. 2. Flow curves for dies coated with a thin PE-LLD layer or different TPU (virgin means uncoated, the vertical lines show the onset of melt fracture) Fig. 3. Extrudates showing the onset of melt fracture: the extrusion direction is downwards; the steel die, with a diameter of 6 mm and length of 32 mm, is coated with different PPA (a: ...

Kunststoffe international, 2006-07-12, Automobile Interiors: Soft Skin, Hard Core
...r of combining the skin and core materials in a meaningful manner: the combination of recycled material for the core and virgin material for a perfect surface makes sense for large parts on the basis of economic reasons alone. Rigid, e.g. fibre-reinforced, core materials and soft skin materials yield dimensionally stable parts with a soft-touch effect and combinations with a foamed core component provide vibration- and sound-absorbing characteristics. Electronic components are being moulded incr...

Kunststoffe international, 2006-09-27, Film Extrusion: More and More Layers
...vented extruders can also be found. Investigations at the Institute for Plastics Processing (IKV), RWTH Aachen University/Germany, have demonstrated that this type of extruder can be justified especially when processing virgin material. The companies Kreyenborg GmbH, Münster/Germany, and UPM Machinery Sales Ltd., Slough/United Kingdom, offer additional interesting possibilities for saving energy when processing PET through the use of IR dryers. Employing infrared radiation leads to a considerabl...

Kunststoffe international, 2006-09-28, Screen Changers: Economic Aspects of Melt Filtration
...he production process continues to operate under constant conditions even during a screen change. The throughput of the line is approximately 1000kg/h. The market price of PET bottle flakes is around 50–70% of the price of virgin material, so that the investment was recovered in a very short period of time. Back-flushing Waste Back-flushing screen changers are frequently used with highly contaminated materials. With these units, a certain amount of the filtered melt is used for cleaning the scr...

Kunststoffe international, 2007-03-15, Partnership on Equal Terms
... fibre-reinforced material is also used, the conveying distances have been optimised, and gentle conveying is assured through the use of glass elbows with an external polyurethane (PU) coating. The system ensures uniform addition of regrind to virgin material which counteracts rising resin costs, in response to the recycling requests from customers. In this case, after consulting with the customer in advance, reground material from beside-the-press and/or central granulators is mixed with the vi...

Kunststoffe international, 2007-04-17, Optimised Material Usage
Optimised Material Usage Inline Recycling Rising material prices simultaneously increase the value of manufacturing waste. For injection moulding companies, inline recycling of waste offers an enormous savings potential. First, however, corresponding machine-related requirements must be fulfilled. Gottfried Hausladen Inline recycling of sprues and scrapped parts leads to optimised material usage, which in turn reduces feedstock consumption. Cleanly sorted by type, the material can be recyc...

Kunststoffe international, 2007-04-17, PET Film with a High Proportion of Recycled Material
...ll-seal (FFS) applications in particular are driving the demand for PET film at an above-average rate. Form-sill-seal machines produce, fill and seal PET film packaging in a single operation. An increasing number of film manufacturers are replacing virgin PET resin with reclaimed material from bottle flakes (PET-R). Use of PET-R lowers product costs considerably. Growing environmental awareness, improved availability of reclaimed PET material from bottles as well as innovative solutions regardin...

Kunststoffe international, 2007-05-14, Cleaning to Virgin Material Standard
Cleaning to Virgin Material Standard PET Recycling In a newly developed process, molten post-consumer PET flakes are partially depolymerised in a special reactor with ethylene glycol. Challenge tests show that contaminants can be removed quickly and virtually without trace by this method. Frank Welle The rising trend in the use of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) for beverage packaging continues unchecked. Returns of post-consumer PET bottles are also at a record level, which is reflected i...

Kunststoffe international, 2007-05-14, Precise and Flexible - Layer for Layer
...allisable and stretch films with good mechanical properties, such as transparency, haze and tensile strength. These lines can be used to flexibly extrude multilayer composite films with substrates of various recyclates and very thin cover layers of virgin materials, depending on the range of applications and film product requirement. n The Authors Michael Beckhoff, born in 1960, is Head of the Flat Film Division (cast film, thermoforming sheet, extrusion coating) at Reifenhäuser Extrusion GmbH...

Kunststoffe international, 2007-08-14, Direct Production of Packaging Films
...ve, since hydrolytic degradation proceeds 5,000-10,000 faster than thermal-oxidative or thermal degradation. Any contamination by polymers, e.g., PVC, that degrade at these temperatures has to be avoided. This technology is suitable for virgin material, for all types of grinding stock or recycling materials, as well as for mixtures of these materials, and it leads directly to films, fibers or to injection molding pellets. Table 1 shows an externally performed comparison of the ZSK process with v...

Kunststoffe international, 2007-08-14, New Structure Bears Fruit
... founded in 2001 specifically for this product portfolio. According to Reifenhäuser, this subsidiary located in Ober-Abtsteinach near Heidelberg, Germany, is meanwhile the leading supplier. Strapping tapes are produced from PET flakes or virgin material in twin-screw extruders and used to pack cotton bales, synthetic fiber bales, wood or earthenware. PET tape replaces steel in these applications. In the fine technical weave sector, e.g., for PET or PA filter technology, Reimotec’s high-speed mon...

Kunststoffe international, 2007-09-19, Cost Effectiveness as Incentive
... and 1,000kgh–1. The main advantages of the efficient degasification zone has its defined residence time and self-cleaning effect, which minimize the effect of thermal degradation. According to the manufacturer, the system can process both virgin material and bottle flakes with a water content of maximum 3,000ppm, at a degasification pressure of 5mbar, to yield high-quality film. The cast film division of Reifenhäuser Extrusion GmbH, Troisdorf, Germany, has a modular structure, permitting its cu...

Kunststoffe international, 2007-11-21, Central Conveying System for Battery Production
.... In addition, each machine was to be equipped with a direct-feed color-metering device. Vacuum would be provided by an oil-free vacuum pump, with automatic switching to a backup pump. Furthermore, Accuma also needed a central mixing station for 80% virgin material and 20% regrind capable of providing a throughput of about 800kg/h to supply the machines. Six outside silos were to be installed initially, of which one silo would be dedicated to regrind. According to the specification from Accuma, ...

Kunststoffe international, 2007-11-21, Weight-Saving Plastics for Reduced Fuel Consumption
... In addition to the weight savings, less crude oil is consumed. Mann+Hummel has developed and is already manufacturing a cylinder head cover made of recompounded plastic material. Naturally, the cover meets the same demands as a product of virgin material – in some aspects it is even better. The material used consists of polyamide fibers, which originate from carpet remnants as well as scrap and excess production during carpet manufacturing. Following series production of this cylinder head cove...

Kunststoffe international, 2008-01-15, When Two Come Together
...melds the two standard machines into an efficient system for special applications. Universal System Concept Molded parts with a high long glass fiber content as well as a filler level as high as 65 % of high-density material and a certain ratio of virgin to recycled resin are already appearing in bid specifications from automakers. Solutions to problems associated with special requirements can be found with complex material formulations, especially when it comes to confining engine compartment...

Kunststoffe international, 2008-04-14, No Chance for Product Pirates
...is process for a leading special pharmaceutical company. In the pilot project – closure caps for syringes – an established IR pigment from 3M that was previously mainly used in printing inks was incorporated into the quality control released PP virgin material. In order to distribute the very low pigment content in the PP carrier material a co-rotating twin screw extruder (a ZE A UTX from KraussMaffei Berstorff) with a special processing unit was used. This range of machinery has been specifical...

Kunststoffe international, 2008-04-14, Straps Demand Extremes
...e other doesn’t. Of course that is a completely new application with 100% recyclate. Scherrer: That’s right. In recent years we have been able to operate with 100% recycled material. In the beginning it was predominantly virgin material containing a portion of recyclate. The requirements on the filtration system and extruder were of course not nearly as high. I think that we were the first in the world to be able to manufacture these high quality products from 100% recyclate. Now our delivery p...

Kunststoffe international, 2008-05-10, Small Series Production of High-Strength Plastic Parts
...A 1°C colder deviation from optimum sintering room temperature results in as much as a 10% loss in strength. Higher sintering room temperatures make the material age faster [1, 6, 7], which has two undesirable consequences. For one thing, more virgin material has to be used to ensure an acceptable property spectrum, thus making the process necessarily more expensive. For another, detail precision suffers from powder residue sticking to part surfaces. Increasing laser output does lower porosity, ...

Kunststoffe international, 2008-07-15, Foam Under Control
...he control of the extruder speeds can be linked to the polymer throughput. A change in the throughput specified automatically results in a change in speed. A typical raw material formulation for foam extrusion consists of up to eight components: the virgin polymer, reclaim and additives for cell size control, colorants and flame retardants. The amounts of the materials are specified in terms of percent, for instance, for component 1: ??? The sum of all polymeric raw materials is usually 100%. ??...

Kunststoffe international, 2008-08-14, Steel Straps Superseded
...easier to handle. Through the use of PET bottle regrind from the secondary recycling loop, PET strapping tapes are now also much cheaper than steel straps. Since PET flakes have a wider molecular weight distribution and lower molecular weight than virgin material as a result of hydrolytic degradation during the initial extrusion step, it was not possible in the past to produce high-quality strapping tapes from 100 % bottle flakes. The problem was solved by the incorporation of additives or by bl...

Kunststoffe international, 2008-09-23, From Development through to Application
...re also playing an increasingly prominent role in material selection. Recycling is particularly advantageous in the case of a technologically sophisticated material. In many cases, a certain percentage of granulated production waste is mixed in with virgin material [7]. A precondition for this, however, is that the key material properties remain at a defined high level. Precisely in the case of solid fillers in reinforced plastics, there is a danger of the fillers and hence the electrically cond...

Kunststoffe international, 2008-10-17, PET in Beverage Packaging
...pproval applies is the responsibility of the national authorities. Developments in recycling will have a positive impact on plastic packaging, as use of recycled material will further improve the already positive image of PET packaging. Producers of virgin resin will also benefit from this, even though use of recycled materials is likely to initially lower sales margins. Given the projected growth rates for PET, new markets must also be created in recycling. “Bottle-tobottle” recyc...

Kunststoffe international, 2008-10-17, Polystyrene Rigid Foam (EPS, XPS)
...41;. In Germany, 70% of post-consumer waste from EPS packaging is currently recycled. The reuse of used EPS packaging is most important. In Europe, it has long been standard practice to add granules from clean collected or treated waste packaging to virgin material in the manufacture of blocks or moldings. Treated regrind is also suitable as a plant substrate, soil loosening material, drainage material and composting aids. EPS regrind is also successfully used for manufacturing lightweight honey...

Kunststoffe international, 2009-01-26, PET Bottles for Strong Straps
...stallizers or driers are not required. Moreover, the Erema process is claimed to have a specific energy consumption that is about 30 % lower than a conventional extrusion setup with upstream crystallizer and drier. The plant can also process pure virgin granulate as well as blends of virgin material, bottle flakes, and strapping production waste in any ratio. In addition, the process permits short plant changeover times, which greatly simplifies and accelerates product changes. The Vacurema tech...

Kunststoffe international, 2009-02-17, Passes the Tensile Test
...ngth PET strapping in a single operation without further additives or treatment. In conventional strapping extrusion lines with a preliminary dryer, the PET flakes had to be augmented with a significant proportion (roughly a third) of PET virgin material to compensate for the material degradation taking place during extrusion (which reduces the intrinsic viscosity IV) (cf. e.g. [2]). The new Vacurema technology can therefore significantly reduce raw materials and manufacturing costs by using 100...

Kunststoffe international, 2009-02-17, Simply Complex
...s are delivered in various states – either as a powder (primarily PVC), a liquid (primarily LSR) or in the form of pellets (all bulk plastics). Pellets account for the highest proportion by far. But plastics are not only processed as standard virgin types, but also as polymer compounds with different properties, or together with additives such as color pigments, stabilizers, lubricating agents or filling media. Whilst the combination of different plastics by means of copolymerization is a polyme...

Kunststoffe international, 2009-02-17, Still a Problem?
... by SMEs. The foundation of cost effective recycling, however, is a careful selection of the products being mechanically recycled as well as a sufficiently large market that can be secured by an attractive price to performance ratio in comparison to virgin material. Due to roller coaster raw material prices as well as uncertain disposal routes in the Far East recycling solutions for wider user groups, particularly in the EU economic area, are currently once again of interest. One of the most sig...

Kunststoffe international, 2009-10-14, Sustainability of Continuous Production
...-quality products while taking into account the specific characteristics of recyclate processing. They include, e.g. the different bulk material properties of recyclate, such as low bulk density and different flow characteristics compared to virgin granules. The plant technology adapted to such conditions permits the manufacture of products with high recyclate proportions, such as PVC window profiles with 50 % regrind layer [27]. They cannot be distinguished from conventional profiles, since the...

Kunststoffe international, 2010-01-27, Two Processes – One System
The presented material conditioning system met standard requirements as regards process technology. It was required to process PET in the form of postconsumer bottle flakes – including pelletized virgin material or regrind as required – for extrusion compounding into high-quality special PET blends and additive compounds for a variety of applications. Since PET is very susceptible to hydrolysis, the inherently hygroscopic material is generally dried before feeding to the processing machine. If a...

Kunststoffe international, 2010-04-20, Protection for Sensitive Surfaces
...-suited to remove impurities with viscoelastic characteristics; these are often called gels. Gels are distinguished from the melt by their high viscosity. Simple filtration systems are usually found in conventional film systems for processing virgin resin with few impurities. These are often discontinuously operating slide plate or piston screen changers with one filtering position (Figs. 1 and 2). To replace the filter elements, it is necessary in this case to stop the film line and restart it...

Kunststoffe international, 2010-09-24, Coming Out of the Crisis on Many Layers
... motor-powered central spindle with evolvent gears. This concept ensures a large total melt surface and consequently optimal conditions for degassing. With these special extruders, it is possible to process both virgin material and purified postconsumer flake with an entry moisture content of up to 1,000 ppm. Hall 16, booth B19 Brückner Maschinenbau Sustainable, Future-oriented Processing Brückner Maschinenbau GmbH & Co. KG, Siegsdorf, Germany, is exhibiting its wide range of products. By em...

Kunststoffe international, 2010-09-24, The “Floating Threshold” Method
...e subject of an agreement between testing institute and client. In the event that there are no such agreements, the above standards have laid down the following specifications: The threshold is defined as 50 % of the level of the virgin value. The Arrhenius plot is extrapolated to an ageing period of 20,000 hours and a temperature is calculated from this that is referred to as temperature index TI. Parameter Variations in the Aging Test While the use of the Arrhenius law is consistently prescrib...

Kunststoffe international, 2011-09-23, Processes before the Melt
...ch the dust is separated from the pellets using a screening and vacuum technology. The degree of dedusting can be varied by modifying the screen sizes and forms. When admixing regrind, the pellet deduster automatically supplies the homogeneous virgin material/regrind ratio required (Fig. 3). As an option, gravimetric dosing units, metal separators and the customer’s existing conveying equipment can all be integrated. All parts of the system coming into contact with the product are made of stainl...

Kunststoffe international, 2011-09-23, Road-Ready and Sound-Insulated
...erial or so-called ferroelectric compound such as a steel-fiber-filled plastic serves as the core component, the result is a plastic part with a very good surface combined with strong electrical shielding. Using Valuable Regrind, Saving on Virgin Resin A common application of the monosandwich method is the injection of regrind to act as core material. In many cases, scrap plastic and sprues are ground in the workshop and added in a certain percentage to virgin resin or sold at a good price on th...

Kunststoffe international, 2011-10-17, Polybutylene Terephthalate (PBT)
...ality of the PET recyclate, the properties of the PBT/PET blends (Pocan ECO, Lanxess) formulated from them match those of primary material, so that these compounds can be used without any problem instead of comparable virgin material. Outlook: New Applications through Global Megatrends The growth of PBT consumption will in future be accounted for more by new fields of application deriving from global megatrends such as increasing mobility or alternative energy production. For example, it may be ...

Kunststoffe international, 2011-10-17, Polycarbonate (PC)
..., which is intended for large vertical and horizontal auto body parts. It is compounded from very highquality recyclates, e.g. from PET bottles (Fig. 3). Thanks to its excellent raw material basis, its properties are comparable with those of virgin material. A technological breakthrough in forming polycarbonate films could benefit the design of automotive interior surfaces. Thanks to new plant technology, large films measuring 500 × 1,000mm2 can be precisely shaped by high-pressure forming. This...

Kunststoffe international, 2011-10-17, Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET)
... now seems to find wider acceptance by consumers. Firstly, the internal SiOx coating protects the wine from oxygen, and secondly, it also prevents the wine aromas from being absorbed into the PET material. In recent years, the price development of virgin PET material has been influenced by the economic crisis (Fig. 3). But following a sharp at the end of 2008, which bottomed out in January 2009, the price for virgin PET material recovered and increased rapidly, with a record level of about 1,800...

Kunststoffe international, 2011-11-18, New from Old
.... After the paint stripping the thermoplastic, which is predominantly talc filled PP/EPDM, is subjected to an additional melt filtration in order to disperse the residual paint and produce a homogeneous, dust free pellet. The recyclate is mixed with virgin resin and used in new parts that can then be painted without any problems. Recycling of End-of-Life Vehicle Bumpers End-of-life vehicle bumpers are available from workshops where they are replaced with new parts or from car breakers and recycl...

Kunststoffe international, 2012-04-20, EVA Sheet – A High-End Product
...n. Moreover, it may also be necessary in some applications to create sheet embossed with different patterns on either side. The test samples examined at the Fraunhofer CSP were composed of different recipes. First, a typical recipe composed of virgin EVA, silanes, peroxides and other additives was used. Some of this was ground up in the edge strip granulator and returned to production in a weight fraction of 20 %. The result was sample No.2. The third sample was created by granulating an EVA rec...

Kunststoffe international, 2012-04-20, Home and Dry?
...r processing, the datasheet contains drying curves for different temperatures (see Title picture), and explicitly states that amorphous PLA must be dried below 50°C. Furthermore, the processor learns from the datasheet that the virgin product, supplied in foiled-lined boxes or bags, has been dried to a residual moisture content of < 250 ppm (0.025 wt.-%). Whether grade 3251D is a crystalline or amorphous PLA is unclear from the datasheet. Thus, there is uncertainty as to which of the drying c...

Kunststoffe international, 2012-06-25, We Want to Continue to Grow Profitably
...w life to the term “pan-European distributor”, which is now widely used. For example, we have now succeeded in becoming active in markets that we had to neglect in the past, such as the Benelux states. To some extent, we are entering virgin territory, but we are glad to take this calculated risk. For example, we still don’t have enough presence in either Northern Europe or, for example, the UK, from the point of view of our new strategic alignment. However, we have placed a concrete focus on bec...

Kunststoffe international, 2012-09-17, Simple, Precise and Automated
...er metering accuracy, even under adverse conditions. The stainless steel valves are unchanged from the previous series and are designed for real-time, live-scale operation. As the dosers continually weigh the materials during dosing, whether virgin resins, masterbatches, additives or regrind, maximum accuracy is ensured. The range of granulator products, too, has been revised. As with the Junior Double series of screenless granulators, the smaller Sumo Junior granulators can now be equipped with...

Kunststoffe international, 2012-09-17, Still Room for Improvement
...g MBengineering GmbH & Co. KG, Dürbheim, Germany, started developing machines in 2000 for enhancing production processes and minimizing scrap rates during processing. The idea was to mix virgin material with regrind from sprues or faulty parts and to return them again to the material loop. It quickly became clear that dust particles in the plastic pellets are the cause of many problems in injection molding: black dots, streaks in transparent parts, and poor surface quality are just some exam...

Kunststoffe international, 2013-01-28, With No Ifs and Buts
...ial. In 2011, the greatest proportion of rPET, about 39 %, also went into the production of textile fibers. Today, an efficient recycling technology is available for returning PET to the economic cycle, as a material with properties equal to virgin material, even after a long product life. The Ohl process presented below aims at closing this material cycle for PET. It includes a sequence of process steps, starting from washed, amorphous PET flakes, through to semicrystalline rPET granules, as an...

Kunststoffe international, 2013-04-19, Melt Filtration on the Injection Molding Machine
...0 to 8,000 kN clamping force, this is in the range from 5 to 32 liters. On large machines with up to 30,000 kN clamping force, the shot volume may be up to 160 liters. The universal concept can be used equally well for virgin material as for recyclates without strict purity specifications. It also applies if hot-runner molds are used. This is precisely where an innovation by the South German machinery manufacturer comes in. It comb...

Kunststoffe international, 2013-04-19, Plastics Cycle
...robably the recycling of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) from beverage bottles. PET is relatively expensive, which makes the material interesting for recycling. “Some prices for recovered PET are even higher than for virgin material”, states Peter Mayer, managing director of S+S Separation and Sorting Technology GmbH in Schönberg, Germany. Disregard of the financial reasons, there are political and social reasons too, for employin...

Kunststoffe international, 2013-04-19, Refining Recyclate
... drastic scale. The fact is that raw material prices are continuing to soar. This means that more and more importance is being attached to high-quality secondary raw materials. On the other hand, however, and in contrast to virgin material, plastic ranging from production to post-consumer waste from collection systems poses the problem of ever increasing quality fluctuations. Influencing factors here include not only mixed fraction...

Kunststoffe international, 2013-08-19, Pooled Expertise Creates More Value
... concentrations can be used in plastics packaging. In recycling, too, new approaches are being adopted. In future, recyclates will be given properties that not even virgin material can match. Sustainable solutions for greenhouse films with no heavy metals have been developed, so that the films can be disposed of in an environment-friendly way or recycled. Since these films no longer yellow and are transparent, they let more sunlight through, which significantly improves growth and yield (Fig. 6)...

Kunststoffe international, 2014-06-17, Closing the Recycling Loop
End-of-life fluoropolymers for different applications up to now required incineration. From today they can be decomposed into their monomers with a special method through chemical recycling. The new field of technology in this process is that virgin material is generated rather than recyclates. Product typeMaterialNoteEnd-of-life components e.g. tube and pump linnings, cable isolationsPTFE, modified PTFE, PFA, FEPSeparation from e.g. metal might be requiredProcessing wastesPTFE, PFA and FEP comp...

Kunststoffe international, 2014-07-22, In Search of Inspiration
...y rooted in contemporary society that one cannot imagine that something like it could be a relatively new custom. Indeed, it came into being about 1920. Prior to that time, blue was the feminine color, being the color associated with the Virgin Mary. Thus, light blue (small blue) was the color for girls. Red, by contrast, was the masculine color and pink thus reserved for boys. During the nineteen twenties, religious color symbolism became increasingly distant, and blue was no longer seen to be ...

Kunststoffe international, 2014-10-10, Polypropylene (PP)
...significantly in so doing. The Daplen PCR portfolio comprises, as a first step, three innovative materials that all combine high quality with improved sustainability:Daplen ME225SY consists of 25 % PCR, 20 % mineral content, and 55 % virgin material and is intended for applications in vehicle interiors such as door trim and trunk linings. Daplen MD250SY is composed of 50 % PCR, 20 % mineral content, and 30 % virgin material and is intended primarily for applications under the hood and exter...

Kunststoffe international, 2015-02-28, New Livery for SSP Reactor
...ondensation) reactor such as the ProTec tumble reactor. In case the starting material was obtained from post-consumer waste, e. g. PET bottle flakes, the reactor decontaminates the material until it fits the requirements for food usage applicable to virgin materials [1], while at the same time increasing molecular weights. The tumble reactor is suitable for post-condensation of pellets of polyester (PET, PBT, PEN etc.) as well as polyamides such as PA6, PA6.6 and others. Most of all, these "refi...

Kunststoffe international, 2015-03-17, Recycled Material for Demanding Requirements
...a standard extrusion grade PA6. Within the accuracy of measurement, the breaking stress (Fig. 8) is comparable as well. However, at 5.8 and 5.9 kJ/m² (Fig. 9), the notched-bar impact strength of neat PA6GR is considerably less than that of virgin PA6. If cast polyamide is processed with a lubricant, the torque and melt pressure in the extruder drop noticeably, allowing processing despite the higher viscosity. Furthermore, the values of the modulus of elasticity are higher than those of neat PA6G...

Kunststoffe international, 2015-09-18, Lightweight and Innovative
Edge trim of dry carbon-fiber fabric from automotive production can be spun into a highly engineered product. As a virgin fiber they can be conditioned to short fibers by means of an innovative process. Compounds filled with this state-of-the-art fiber can be used to make lightweight, highly resilient automotive components. PropertiesAkromid B3 ICF15Akromid B3 GF30Akromid B3 ICF40Akromid B3 GF60Tensile elastic modulus [MPa]11,00010,30030,00021,000Flexural strength [MPa]210270320370Densit...

Kunststoffe international, 2015-10-12, Secondary Plastics as a Resource
...e fully automatic, self-cleaning filter and subsequently metered via a melt pump to a co-rotating, closely intermeshing twin-screw extruder from Coperion GmbH, Stuttgart, Germany. Here, besides various additives, fillers and reinforcing materials, virgin material can also be added for the production of polymer blends. The short defined residence times and direct metering of the melt into the twin-screw extruder reduce the thermal stressing of the material. The Corema product line is characterize...

Kunststoffe international, 2015-10-12, Taking Full Advantage of Secondary Raw Materials
...ture generations, the amount of recycled material in products has to be increased significantly. The importance of plastics as a secondary raw material is thus continuing to increase rapidly. To enable recyclates to be used 1 : 1 as a substitute for virgin material there are two crucial factors: on the one hand, sufficient raw recycling material has to be available and, on the other hand, it has to be possible to process this material economically to make recycled pellets with customized propert...

Kunststoffe international, 2015-12-17, Improving the Quality of Recycled Materials
...ed products and a permanent fixture in many a company’s product portfolio. With the right additives, such as stabilizers, compatibilizers and reactive additives, recycled materials can attain a level of properties that enables them to compete with virgin materials. Mechanical recycling is the preferred option for recycling post-consumer plastics. In Europe, some 26 % or 6.6 million t [1] of post-consumer plastics were recycled in this way in 2012. A further increase is inevitable when the EU ban...

Kunststoffe international, 2016-09-23, Second Life for Aircraft Cabins
...ows that the processing of composites based on phenolic resins is possible in principle. The recycling process depends on the selected chemical agent and the temperature. The recovered fibers show basically the same mechanical properties as virgin fibers. The recycled material formed during the chemical recycling process can be reused for the production of new FRPs. Thus, the developed process is a promising alternative to existing recycling technologies.Further research is required with regard ...

Kunststoffe international, 2016-10-17, Bulky Production Scrap
...n, material saving, and in-house recycling (Fig. 1). It is hardly surprising that the demand for recycling systems is particularly high where material costs account for a relatively large proportion of finished product costs.Material Logistics for Virgin Material Used as a ModelMaterials handling systems for virgin plastics pellets normally consist of closed conveyors with pipelines and silo storage. These systems are highly automated and, in addition to their function of in-house materials tran...

Kunststoffe international, 2016-10-17, Plastics Loop Closed
...s it has been possible above all to increase the process stability of the systems considerably, so that the recyclates have the customer’s desired properties.One result of these developments is that apart from recyclers, producers of virgin material are also increasingly discovering recycling as a profitable business model. One example of this is the recent acquisition of the German plastics recyclers mtm plastics GmbH and mtm compact GmbH by Borealis. By incorporating mtm plastics, the technolo...

Kunststoffe international, 2016-10-17, Polyethylene-Terephthalate (PET)
...d PET up to 10. Chemical recycling means putting flakes of recycle PET directly in the esterification reactor. The advantages of this PET grade, marketed under the name Viridis 98, are multiple. It has the same quality and appearance like virgin material, thanks to a sorting machine installed on the flakes feeding line and colorant system that provides the ability to modify the PET color by the amount of the different color additives depending on flakes color. The production of the material is ...

Kunststoffe international, 2017-03-27, Filler with Lightweight Potential
...ped, in which natural fiber-reinforced polymers are pyrolized to produce pyrolysis char as an alternative filler for thermoplastics. Mineral fillers such as talcum are widely used in thermoplastics for reinforced automotive components. Compared with virgin polymers, filled polymers have improved properties, e. g. stiffness and bending strength. Dimensional stability under heat is also improved by using talc. Disadvantages of mineral fillers are their high density as well as lower impact and tens...

Kunststoffe international, 2017-07-19, A Thicket of Fibers
...body elements, parcel shelves or similar applications. Tennis rackets, bicycle helmets or bicycle frames could also be produced from this material. Another advantage would be the low price for short fibers or recyclate in comparison with virgin CF material. Finally, the composite could be used in medical technology, since it is also heat- and chemical-resistant. Summary and OutlookShort carbon fibers of various fiber lengths and fiber areal weights were used to produce nonwovens. These nonwovens...

Kunststoffe international, 2017-10-13, À la Carte Input
...e rapid surface area renewal, a vacuum of around 25 mbar is enough to remove all moisture from the material. The processing unit can thus handle input materials economically as they need neither pre-drying nor crystallizing. This applies as much to virgin material as to post-consumer bottle flakes with input moisture contents of more than 1 % and to mixtures of different materials such as PET and PE or PET and PET-G. Even sheet made solely from recycled material can achieve FDA or EFSA approval ...

Kunststoffe international, 2017-12-21, Long-Chained and High-Viscous
...is retained and remains active in the material, however, cast polyamide degrades during processing in the molten state. This degradation means that recycled cast polyamide has similar mechanical properties to normal commercially available extruded virgin material [2], i. e. reduced values in some areas. In processing cast polyamide, the amount of scrap (e. g. sprues and runner systems) obtained in the production of components can be up to 10 % of the total production quantity. Due to post-machin...

Kunststoffe international, 2018-05-15, Recycling of Long Carbon Fibers
...rial accumulations limited further compaction. The underlying variations in the individual layer thickness is illustrated by the micro-section (Fig. 8).Comparison with New FibersIn the consideration of the mechanical properties in comparison to virgin fibers, a number of factors can result in a reduction in the mechanical properties:Removal of the sizing in the recycling step, causing poorer fiber-matrix adhesion strength.Damage of the fibers in further processing steps.Reduction of the fiber le...

Kunststoffe international, 2018-05-15, Waste-Free Production
...s with the requirements that apply to recognized international food standards (EFSA, FDA) and thus achieves "100 % food suitability". ConclusionWhen a production process operates with PET material built-up through polycondensation, the proportion of virgin material can be kept relatively low or even eliminated entirely to significantly lower the production costs. The material thickness in subsequent production can be kept very constant thanks to the high level of process stability described at t...

Kunststoffe international, 2018-09-19, 300 Bar Pressurized Nitrogen under Control
...thus eliminating potential sink marks on the outer surface. At the end of the cooling time, the molded part and content of the overflow cavity are removed, and the contents of the overflow cavity are cut off and recycled for re-use together with virgin material (Fig. 1). The hollow body version of the handle reduces the wall thickness to an average of 1.5 to 2 mm. This allows a cycle time of 45 to 50 s to be achieved. It is approximately equal to the cycle time of the slider version.Central Pres...

Kunststoffe international, 2018-12-19, A Change in Thinking
...curred here as well, so that price increases between 10 and 15 % are being accepted for products with a recyclate proportion in the meantime. Thus, the costs for collection, sorting, and processing are being acknowledged. Nevertheless, virgin material remains an unfair competitor, since the costs for utilization and recycling in this case have been externalized so far by passing them on to other partners along the value chain. This unequal treatment could potentially even constitute a meaningful...

Kunststoffe international, 2018-12-19, Paying Attention to Resources Everywhere
...e deposit system, non-return PET bottles are now recycled at a rate of 97 percent here in Germany. But even here, two thirds of the recovered material still ends up in film or textiles. Retail drink bottles currently contain almost three quarters virgin material on average. Members of the German RAL Quality Association have undertaken to halve this amount by 2022 – at least for all bottles that the association permits to bear its quality mark – i. e. all those containing at least 25 percent recy...

Kunststoffe international, 2019-07-17, PET: From A to C
...ucible homogenous PET due to their different colors. As a result, in the first quarter of 2019 in Germany, for example, multicolored PET flakes had a market value (500 to 700 EUR/t) of roughly only half of that of transparent PET pallets made from virgin material (1100 EUR/t) or recycled transparent PET pallets (1300 EUR/t). Taking advantage of this cost benefit was what brought together Gneuss Kunst‧stofftechnik, Sukano, the Swiss additive manufacturer, and Illig Maschinenbau, the manufacturer...

Kunststoffe international, 2019-12-18, Second Life for Carbon Fibers
...e of four layers rCF nonwoven with 400 g/m² each. The nonwoven has been produced by carding and was consolidated using the stitch-bonding process. By using this rCF nonwoven, virgin carbon tapes and carbon non-crimp fabrics have been substituted. In addition, this process enables the re-use of waste from own production in new products. A two-piece bonded part has been manufactured by Eissmann Cotesa GmbH, Mittweida, Germany, using the autoclave process. The rear spoiler (Fig. 4) consists of a vi...

Kunststoffe international, 2020-02-12, 3D View of Sustainability
...:50 allocation [12], which encourages both the use of recycled material and the production of recyclable products. Figure 3 schematically shows the allocation of responsibilities. Users A and C pay the costs for the production of the virgin material and for the disposal of the product in equal proportions, and also 50 % of the recycling costs. User B only has to pay 50 % of the costs of the upstream or downstream recycling process, because he puts recycled material back into circulation. As long...

Kunststoffe international, 2020-02-12, Automotive Components Made of Packaging
...vers the newly produced material to JSP. JSP uses the material to produce its EPP Arpro 5134 RE (Table 1) with a recyclate content of 25 %. This not only saves ‧resources but also reduces CO2(e) emissions by up to 12 % compared with virgin material – CO2(e) stands for CO2 equivalent and describes the emissions of all greenhouse gases converted into CO2 – without sacrifices in mechanical properties or processability (Fig. 1). EPP in Automobiles on the Advance In pursuit of higher operating ranges...

Kunststoffe international, 2020-02-12, Europe Needs to Catch up
.... Of course, in principle, you can pack the recycled plastic in an interlayer so that it does not come into contact with the foods, but then the question arises of which plastic we are talking about, how barrier-resistant the virgin material in the outer layers is. There is no general answer. Kunststoffe: Where – if not in such packaging – can post-consumer recyclate be used even more extensively? Baumgartner: For foods, there is often a secondary packaging, where you can work to entirely dif...

Kunststoffe international, 2020-05-05, No Chance for the Cycle Concept?
...tant when manufacturing packaging. In the past this has mainly meant using materials from petrochemical sources specifically earmarked for pharmaceutical applications. Kunststoffe: Could manufacturing waste be reused? Düring: It must always be virgin material; this means that the polymer used is only melted once in the production cycle. Recycled materials and self-sorted waste from our own production are not yet permitted. This is one of the points that we are currently investigating with our cu...

Kunststoffe international, 2020-05-05, Opening up a Broader Range of ‧Applications for Recyclates
...ell-known internationally active processor. Fluctuations in the material properties pose a significant challenge for the processing of recyclates. Even homogeneously collected and treated plastic wastes are subject to greater fluctuations than virgin material, since the recyclate properties are also influenced by circumstances such as how heavily the wastes are polluted and the process used to wash, shred and repelletize the wastes. In recyclate processing, such materials are generally sourced f...

Kunststoffe international, 2020-08-11, What Will Be the Color of 2021?
...dertone frequently present in recycled, colored plastics. Plastics processors must take this into account in coloration. In coloring recyclates, it is often not possible to use the same formulation as for virgin material. In addition, the undertone of the recyclates varies between different batches. To achieve uniform coloration of products over time, the colorant formulation must be tailored to the particular recyclate. Assistance can be provided here by software tools that calculate the effect...

eMagazine "Journal of Plastics Technology", 2011-11-02, Reactive compounding of PA 66 for the extrusion of thick-walled pipe
... growth of the PA 66 by low shear rate. As example for a practical application, thick-walled pipes were extruded. The pipes, made of chain extended PA 66, featured a distinctly improved wall-thickness distribution compared to the pipes obtained from virgin PA 66.