PETpla.net Insider 12 / 2010

TRADE SHOW REVIEW 32 PET planet insider Vol. 11 No. 12/10 www.petpla.net Heat and light In a year that has been one of evolution, rather than revolution in the field of PET bottle production, Krones AG unveiled some innova- tions designed to custom- ers improve efficiency, and productivity and flexibility. The company stand featured operating Contiform S8 machines, which demonstrated developments available from model year 2011. Energy consumption in heating and blow- ing air have been particularly addressed but the overall effect is to improve performance in other areas, also. One of the challenges to producing multiple forms and col- ours on a single line is consistency. If a line has dark and light preforms running one after the other, conventional heating sys- tems will produce inconsistent results. Light-coloured preforms will reflect heat while dark-coloured models absorb it. The result is that the lighter units are not heated as effectively as the darker ones, which will lead to varying finishes and unreliable quality. Krones has addressed this issue with Flex-Wave, a microwave heating technology that consumes significantly less energy than conventional infra-red solutions. But energy saving is only part of the story. The company says that Flex-Wave is particularly well suited for Contiform/filler monoblocs, as the very short heat- ing time needed by the microwave system reduces the number of preforms that have to be inside the oven to a fraction of the former figure. according to Krones, this means very few losses in the event of an emergency stop. But there is another benefit that flows from the heating char- acteristics of microwaves: Significant penetration depth. Each microwave station is fitted with an enclosed cavity resonator, which ensures that the microwave energy is properly deposited in the preform. The penetration depth enables the preform to be evenly warmed up without surface cooling or equalisation time. As each heating station can be separately controlled, this offers a wide variety of process variability options which can cope with different preform colours, PET material and varied proportions of recyclate. A second Contiform S8 machine demonstrated Krones Pro- Shape technology, which is designed to produce oval-section or asymmetrical containers. It uses the Contiform series’ existing heat-up and stretch blow-moulding technology in combination with a new module for preform orientation and selective tempera- ture control. The ProShape module is integrated into the machine between the standard linear oven and blowing wheel. Temper- ature-controlled aluminium moulds, specifically designed for the required bottle, are used to apply the appropriate temperature profile to the preforms. This ensures optimised material distribu- tion for the downstream stretch blow-moulding process, which in turn enables very accurate profiles with sharply defined tempera- ture boundaries. Krones says that this permits stable thick-walled areas to be located directly alongside thin-walled segments. An optical camera system is able to recognise and correctly position preforms by orientation marks. The company says that a huge range of different orientations can be processed and that station outputs of up to 2,000 containers/h are achievable. www.krones.com Kreyenborg and Seebach announce new filterdisc Extrusion and polymerisation company Kreyenborg and filtration specialists Seebach have jointly developed a new ‘filterdisc’, which is designed for depth filtration tasks in polymer filtration. It offers increased filtration area but, at the same time, takes up less space. Standard wire mesh screens are only suitable for surface filtration, for removing solid particles from fluid. The new screen goes somewhat further. It is designed to separate and filter out short-chain polymer molecules – gels – from the main polymer. The dif- ferentiation between the two, the main polymer and the gel, is only the different viscosity. The Kreyenborg and Seebach filter uses filterdisc elements that utilise a special fleece as the core layer of the filter element. ‘Viscoelastic’ particles are captured and held within the fleece cells, rather than being held on the surface, as in wire mesh filters. This both greatly increases surface and enables melt quality to be improved, which makes the final product suitable for more demand- ing applications. The filterdisc was demonstrated in piston screen changers by both companies at K Show 2010. www.kreyenborg.de  www.seebach.com Cleaner colours PolyOne, which is headquartered near Cleveland, Ohio, has announced the European launch of its OnColor Com- plete Liquid Colour Solutions, a liquid colorant system that is designed to help converters and OEMs reduce costs and eliminate waste by optimising colorant use, handling and man- agement. The system has been developed in association with Maguire companies, including Maguire Products, Inc., which is headquartered in Aston, Pa, USA, Clearfield Color, LLC, and Riverdale Color Company, in which Maguire Products is a stockholder. Maguire, which supplies liquid colour pumps, material management systems and other auxiliary equipment for plastics moulding, extrusion, and compounding, believes that the new equipment addresses the major disadvantages of liquid colours, compared with masterbatches; namely, that liquid has, historically, been messy and difficult to handle. The containers are fully self-contained and ship with their own pump. As a liquid, colour dosing can be undertaken in very small quantities. Dispensing is immediate, Maguire says, and the sealed unit ensures that the liquid remains within the container, rather than spilling, dripping or oozing onto the floor. The pump and drum are recyclable and can actually be used up to five times before recycling in what is claimed by the companies to be a first-of-its-kind, closed-loop system. The company says that the system will eliminate waste and storage associated with unused colorant, as well as disposal of discarded containers. By eliminating spillage and mess while, at the same time, simplifying material changeovers and clean-ups, the system is claimed to reducing operating costs. The pre-packaged and sealed-unit drums may also assist with inventory management. The metering system integrates feed, the dosing pump. Single dispersed pigment colorants are sup- plied through an exclusive arrangement with Riverdale Color Co Ltd. the OnColor delivery service provides colorant delivery and replenishment, collecting emptydrums for re-use. The OnColor Complete system is currently available in North America and Europe; availability in Asia is scheduled for early 2011. www.polyone.com  www.clearfield color.com www.maguire.com  www.riverdalecolor.com