PETpla.net Insider 12 / 2011

MATERIAL / RECYCLING 15 PET planet insider Vol. 12 No. 12/11 www.petpla.net In the devolatilising section, the polymer melt flows onto a rotating drum. This contains eight smaller sat- ellite screws, which rotate in opposing directions. In this way, an extremely large polymer melt surface and a disproportionately large surface area exchange rate are delivered. The polymer melt can be devolatilised so efficiently at a vacuum of only 20 to 40mbar that PET with a residual moisture level of as high as 1 % can be processed without problems. At the same time, volatile contaminants are efficiently extracted. Flexibilty The MRS extrusion unit is very flex- ible, allowing the use of input material with varying residual moisture levels. The elimination of pre-treatment steps means that changing between differ- ent colour feedstocks is quick and simple. The IV of the output material can be selected via the Online Viscom- eter and is automatically held at the selected level. The gentle processing of the MRS extruder and the avoid- ance of thermal pre-treatment means that yellowing of the material is kept to an absolute minimum. In the case of bottle-to-bottle processes, the pellets can be processed in amorphous condi- tion or subsequently crystallised and a short SSP process can be used to raise the IV value to the required level. Proven in practice Sheets A Brazilian manufacturer of ther- moforming sheet currently operates a smaller line with an MRS 110 and a throughput rate of approx. 600 kg/h. It processes PET bottle flakes and flakes from reground skeletal waste and edge trim to high quality sheet, without pre-drying and with simple vacuum technology. Bottle-to-bottle Gneuss systems are also in use on bottle-to-bottle recycling applications. A supplier of PET bottle flakes with sort- ing and washing expanded its process by processing these flakes into chip/ pellets and thus increased its margin. It dispensed with the time-consuming and costly pre-drying and crystallising of post consumer PET bottle flakes. High quality bottle grade chip/pellets are manufactured at a throughput rate of up to 2,000 kg/h with a vacuum of 25 to 30 mbar. Its MRS extruder keeps the dwell time of the chip/pellets in the solid state polymerisation to a mini- mum. The RSFgenius enables reliable filtration, and the Online Viscometer VIS provides accurate real-time vis- cosity monitoring and control of the vacuum system. www.gneuss.de Holland Colours European Division Halvemaanweg 1, 7323 RW Apeldoorn, P.O.Box 720, 7300 AS Apeldoorn, The Netherlands I Tel: 31(55)368 0700 I Fax: 31(55)366 2981 I E-mail: info@hollandcolours.com Why would you hide your product behind dark and thick wall bottles? Holland Colours can offer a solution which can preserve any UV sensitive product from the negative impacts of UV light while keeping the PET bottle transparent – or give it a light colour if you wish. Holland Colours UV 370 and UV 390 range offers optimized protection in a cost effective way. BECAUSE ORANGE JUICE IS AN ORANGE JUICE Invisible UV protection