PETpla.net Insider 10 / 2020

PREFORM PRODUCTION PETplanet Insider Vol. 21 No. 10/20 www.petpla.net 21 PETplanet: What is the savings potential in the design of a preform produced with Xtreme technology? Mr Narder: Xtreme technology overcomes current preform design limitations offering extensive light- weighting especially around the gate and under the support ring, areas which are not stretched during the bottle blowing. All this without compro- mising the mechanical performance of the bottles. PETplanet: Why Japan? In the IM sector, the Japanese rely on local products. Mr Narder: The Japanese believe in innovation and trusted our Xtreme technology. They have very high stand- ards of quality and cleanliness, even in production. Here, with the 100% inline preform quality control and the fully electric Xtreme compared to IM with hydraulic components, we have been able to come up trumps. PETplanet: Here, in your fac- tory, there are four more Xtremes for delivery. Mr Narder: This machine here is for Mexico. Here too, the Xtreme with 96 cavities is integrated with flake recycling. Another Xtreme starting from flakes is for a well-known multi- national company for their facility in Poland and the other two stand-alone Xtremes running are going one in Korea and the other one in UAE. The latter has the option of producing two different preforms at the same time, which enables the customer to oper- ate a large system even when item quantities of a preform are lower. This saves retooling time and cost. PETplanet: This means that all your Xtremes are going to or have gone to bottlers or, as Japan, to recy- clers? Mr Narder: We can clearly see the focus on these customers. Ultimately, we want to offer the Xtreme integrated with the stretch-blower and filler. We have already one system running in Brazil since last year. Only bot- tlers would need this. Thanks to the fact that Xtreme technology can be connected upsteam or downstream, it opens new business models. In its Xtreme Renew configuration allows recyclers to increase the added value of their offer selling preforms instead of recycled raw material. Converters can take advantage of the combina- tion of Xtreme preform production with stretch-blow moulders and operate a wall-to-wall selling bottles. PETplanet: Thank you, Antonio. Interview with Anna Horecica Csiki, Xtreme Product Manager PETplanet: Hello Anna. You have been Project Manager for the Xtreme for six years now. There has already been an attempt by another company to develop compression moulding for preforms. Are there no reservations in the market for your new technology? Mrs Horecica: The difference lies in the process. With the preform it is extremely important to be able to create reproducible conditions. The melt in particular requires a lot of atten- tion. With us, the melt comes continu- ally from the extruder at the relatively low pressure of 160bar and flows into the rotational hotrunner. Each cavity has its own dosing and injection unit which holds exactly the quantity of melt for the preform in the allocated cavity. Then we increase the injection pressure to max 300bar. This injection- compression process is completely different to other developments and it guarantees to us that there is an optimum filling of the material in each cavity to produce a perfect preform. PETplanet: And each shot pot is individually adjustable? Mrs Horecica: Yes, so we can adjust each cavity optimally. We have further enhanced the concept and you can see on the system for the Middle East here that by adjusting the shot pots and of course using different stacks, we can also produce two very different preforms on the carousel at the same time. PETplanet: This means that indi- vidual cavities are mounted on the carousel? Mrs Horecica: Yes, the entire unit consists of two parts that the cus- tomer can quickly and easily adapt. The lower part is the hot side with the shot pot which does not require any changeover; the cold side (the injec- tion stack) is above and no crane is needed for the exchange; the parts can be quickly removed by hand. This makes working at the machine much easier. PETplanet: How does this con- figuration influence the mould change- over? Mrs Horecica: Xtreme technol- ogy and special design of hot and cold parts allows the preform to preform changeover in less than 2 hours. PETplanet: How do the preform inspections work? Mrs Horecica: Here at the trans- fer station to preform cooling, we have two cameras that inspect neck geom- etry and injection point. Above, at the end of the cooling zone, there are three more cameras that check the outside body of the preform. A special software is able to identify the two dif- ferent preforms produced simultane- ously. PETplanet: Thank you, Anna. www.sipasolutions.com F.l.t.r.: Anna Horecica Csiki, Xtreme Product Manager, Alexander Büchler and Anto- nio Narder, General Manager at Sipa in front of Xtreme 72 cavities producing two preforms simultaneously.