PETpla.net Insider 06 / 2021

PREFORM PRODUCTION PETplanet Insider Vol. 22 No. 06/21 www.petpla.net 24 Netstal responds to the depleted PET market and rising prices. Tackling a shortage of PET raw materials In recent weeks, there have been shortages in electronic supply and mechanical parts as well as raw materials, with the latter also affecting the availability of PET. The reduced vol- umes have been caused by a variety of factors. While the European economy remains slug- gish as a result of the pandemic, China’s is booming once again. Excessive demands for raw materials in China are placing huge pressures on stocks of European plastic. These shortages not only cause disruption to supplies but also result in higher prices. In addition, several force majeure measures have been introduced in Europe and worldwide in recent months. The lack of raw material for producing PET means that PET for preforms and bottles cannot be manufactured either. Nevertheless, production at PET processing facilities is continuing and noticeably increasing with the approaching summer months. In an interview with PETplanet, Stefan Kleinfeld, PET Product Manager, and Christina Härter, Head of Application Engineering at KraussMaffei HighPerformance, highlight the technolog- ical opportunities that using the new PET line will offer processors. PETplanet: Mrs Härter, Mr Klein- feld – you say that some of your customers are short of raw material. This is particularly devastating with the approaching top-selling summer months in mind. Kleinfeld: Some of our custom- ers are in a very difficult situation. There are delivery obligations that cannot be honoured as a result of the shortage of raw material. Härter: Larger customers are also being affected by the lack of supplies. The smaller ones are impacted either by reduced avail- ability or higher prices and quite often by both. Recyclate could be an alternative, especially for PET, but even here the market is very limited. PETplanet: That doesn’t sound very encouraging. What solutions can you offer your customers? Kleinfeld: There is some excel- lent news to report on recyclate. The new Netstal PET line’s improved screw has enabled us to achieve even more robust processing of recyclate. It can be in the form of flakes and rPET, i.e. as processed recyclate, which provides a high level of flexibility for our customers. which meant that production could be started quickly. In the case of flakes, we have so far carried out tests up to a proportion of 50%, and in line with the decrease in bulk density, we have had a reduction in throughput of about half. (See Fig. 1) PETplanet: But the amount of post-consumer recyclable bottles has still not returned to its previous high levels either. Are there other solu- tions? Härter: A change from virgin PET to flakes will most likely not take place, with a switch to rPET planned instead in view of its quality. The additional processing phase mainly involves removing volatile substances such as benzene levels, which are adjusted as necessary. Incidentally, we also discovered during trials that minor changes needed to be made to our processing settings in switching from 100% virgin to 100% rPET. No extra modifications were necessary, Figure 1: Throughput in relation to flake content