PETpla.net Insider 10 / 2012

MATERIAL / RECYCLING 20 PET planet insider Vol. 13 No. 10/12 www.petpla.net Launch of Viscosheet production line at Starlinger Viscotec open-house event From bottle to sheet 2 in 1 - Drying and decontamination of PET PCR f akes in a single step The Decon 50 decontamination dryer for post-con- sumer recycled PET flakes can be used as a stand-alone or in-line unit that both dries and decontaminates crystal- lized PCR flakes or skeleton waste in accordance with EFSA and FDA standards prior to the extrusion process. The Viscosheet line is designed for the production of 100% food grade rPET sheet. It can process up to 100% of undried material with minimized IV decrease. The main features of the line are:  Conical twin screw extruder: Due to the high vacuum venting and the smooth processing in the co-rotating conical twin screw extruder, it is possible to achieve excellent colour and IV values even with undried PET materials.  Optional co-extruder  Power backflush screen changer: Specially designed for R-PET with a filtration fineness of <50μm, the power backflush filter eliminates pressure drops during backflushing and gives constant efficiency of filtration regardless of output.  Gravimetric dosing unit  Fully integrated operator interface  Optional PE lamination  PE film unwinder for laminating PE film on to the PET sheet.  Fully automatic winder: Winder with fully-automatic roll change facility incl. cutting. Two individual rolls can be wound with a middle cut of the sheet on one shaft.  Output up to 2000kg September 12 and 13, 2012 saw 200 visitors converge on the Viscotec open-house event in Upper Austria. Besides the conference programme, the main focus of interest as far as the visitors were concerned was the world premiere of the Viscosheet line which was being showcased under production conditions in the Technical Centre. The core competence of Starlinger viscotec, specialists in PET upgrading and decontamination technology, lies in food grade applications for recycled post-consumer PET and HDPE mate- rials. The opening of the production site and Technical Centre on premises extending to 20,000m² has enabled Starlinger to expand their SSP (Solid State Polycendensation) Division. In the Technical Centre, where all vis- cotec products can be seen in produc- tion, customer tests can be run for any material configuration. At the open-house event, the Viscosheet line was producing 100% rPET sheet. The rPET flakes had been dried and decontaminated in the DecON module. According to Lisa Straub, Food Safety Manager at viscotec, “this is an integrated system that meets the new EFSA decontamination standard for infants which is the strictest in the world”. After the decontamination stage, the warm, dry flakes were run through a colour sorter, where the flakes, such as multilayer or PVC particles which changed colour after the thermal treatment stage in the Decon, can be sorted easily and inexpensively into the gravimetric feeding system on the sheet line. During the live demonstration forming part of the open-house event, the mixing ratio of four components varied in the course of full production between dry and warm granulate, cold granulate, undried in-house flakes and PCR flakes from the Decon unit with- out any perceptible property changes to the end product. Visitors were able to inspect the quality of the sheet using the integrated quality documen- tation system qualiTec, a develop- ment from Starlinger’s textile division which automatically measures, dis- plays and fully documents important para-meters such as IV, thickness, colour L,a,b values and contaminants Viscosheet line under production conditions