PETpla.net Insider 10 / 2016

MATERIAL / RECYCLING 13 PET planet Insider Vol. 17 No. 10/16 www.petpla.net MATERIAL / RECYCLING 13 Production cost savings and flexibility The production cost comparison in fig. 2 shows that MTR still has a big cost advantage in the rage of 15% compared to “new style” SSP and more than 20% compared to “old style” SSP. The reason behind this is that MTR technology makes total use of the latent heat of the chips and does not require any energy input for the final AA-removal step. This results in great Opex savings for MTR, because even the “new style” SSP requires heat input into the crystallisation, massive energy input to the SSP reactor and lots of electrical energy for running the huge nitrogen circulation blowers and nitrogen cleaning systems. The biggest cost factor that contributes to the production cost is the raw material with approximately 90% of the cost. Other contributions to produc- tion cost are capital-, energy-, mainte- nance- and labor cost. Additionally MTR technology provides higher flexibility noticeable in the fast transition time from one product grade to another (e.g. IV change) and low respec- tively zero inventory in the system. Fig. 2: Cost comparison MTR technology versus “old style” and “new style” SSP technology Fig. 3 Comparison of cost savings and flexibility