PETpla.net Insider 04 / 2010

PET products 32 PET planet insider Vol. 11 No. 04/10 www.petpla.net Auto-adaptive drying system claims major energy savings The drying of PET is a cru- cial stage in its transformation from resin to finished product. Failure to ensure proper drying and conditioning can lead to a rapid drop-off in inherent vis- cosity (IV), with negative effects on the blow-moulding proc- ess. Drying consumes a large volume of energy, requiring the resin to be exposed to hot, dry air for up to as much as 6 hours. Italian company Piovan, headquartered near Venice, Italy, has introduced Genesys, a drying system that it says improves this process and makes it more energy efficient. Genesys is claimed to achieve the industry’s lowest-ever energy consumption. The system uses state-of-the-art tech- nology, such as loss in weight control, airflow management and stabilisation, an intelligent regeneration process and advanced industrial PC-based control. The company says it is the only auto-adaptive system available today. The system has integrated an automatic airflow control and adjustment to reduce energy consumption by 35 – 55% below conventional resin drying systems. It also has the capability to further optimise energy use by stabilising the airflow in the drying hopper. It is further designed to recover almost all the energy used in regeneration of the desiccant material and, in so doing, to achieve savings of 50 – 80%, compared with traditional or current regeneration technology. With claimed overall system savings of 30% and more, Piovan says that a Genesys system producing PET performs running resin at a rate of 1,000kg/h can achieve savings in excess of 220,000kWh/yr. www.piovan.com/genesys Fully automatic mobile plant for dis- aster areas and production flexibility Plast Engineering Knauff e.K. has recently dem- onstrated and sold a number of fully automatic stretch blow-mould bottling, filling and labelling plants that are installed into a standard 40ft (12m) container. Designated as the Compact A 4C, the company says that the mobile plant is suitable for disaster emergency relief operations and for periods of heavy commercial demand. The Compact A 4C manufactures up to 2,800 PET 500 to 1,500cl bph from preforms; other volumes can also be specified. The PET bottles are automatically disinfected by UV radiation and transferred directly to the filling station, which fills them with UV disinfected drink- ing water. They are then closed with UV radiated caps, labelled, and covered with tamper-evident sleeves. The ready-for-sale bottles are discharged through a window in the container wall. Operation of the blow moulder requires clean air at 15 bar. The filling/capping, labelling, and sleeving units are supplied by a screw compressor, which is installed in an insulated compartment at one end of the container. Venti- lation flaps enable proper airflow for each component. The complete system requires an 80 kW power supply; a potable water supply has to be provided on site. EC electrical power and two-inch water supply con- nections are installed on the outside of the container. www.pet-equipments.de  www.plastics-equipments.de 22g ultra-light 1500ml water bottle Sipa says that it has used its TriBloc technol- ogy, presented at Drinktec 2009, to produce the world’s lightest 1,500ml bottle for still or carbonated water. The 22g bottle is blown in Sipa rotary blow-moulders at 2,000bph per cavity and filled and labelled in the Sipa TriBloc. Sipa is now offer- ing complete turnkey lines, including TriBloc and a Sipa packaging and palletising line, which is designed to handle very light containers throughout the process. This eliminates the need for conveyor switches or setting and management at each changeover. PE roll-adhesive tech- nology eliminates hot melt glue and traditional label cut- ting knives and makes the packing line simpler as bottles are delivered from the TriBloc, onto table-top conveyors straight to the shrink-packer. Space required is 40% less than conventional lines and the bottle itself can hold 60kg of top load. One operator can monitor the complete line, assisted by forklift drivers for raw materials supply. www.sipa.it Volumetric filling system AMS Ferrari, of Modena, Italy, celebrated the presentation of its Infinity volumetric filler/capper system with a sale to an Iranian company at drinktec 2009. The 52-valve Infinity system uses a Windows-based PC control for entering required capacity into the machine and shows three fills at once, to aid in monitoring and fault-finding. It is supplied from a pressurised tank, with electronic moni- tor, along a single pipe to the volumetric fillers. A second pipe controls the pneumatic valve opening and shutting. It is capa- ble of handling a range of hot or cold fill beverages and liquids, from low-density water to high-density products such as tomato sauce, ketchup and fruit preserves, as well as detergents and delicate fluids like milk. It is designed to respond automatically to changes in temperature and viscosity. www.amsferrari.it C O S T EFFICIENCY ENERGY EFFICIENCY C O S T EFFICIENCY ENERGY EFFICIENCY