MOULD MAKING PETplanet Insider Vol. 24 No. 05/23 www.petpla.net 22 Saving money and reducing CO2 emissions through hot runner refurbishment “The hot runner is the heart and artery system of the mould” The company HRC is located near the historic town of Győr in Hungary on the banks of the Danube. HRC’s core business consists of the servicing of PET hot runners and providing highquality spare parts to the PET packaging industry. Keeping their company’s environmental impact as low as possible is something that brothers Árpád and Tamás Horváth, who founded the company in 2006, have seen as an important part of their mission from the very beginning, and they work continuously to reduce the CO2 impact of their processes. “Being owners of an industrial type of business in such a beautiful country as ours, it’s only natural to be aware of the impact on the environment”, Árpád states. “We service the plastic packaging industry, which has had its fair share of challenges in recent years, mostly coming from a growing consumer concern over pollution and emissions, and more recently the pressure to increase the re-use and the recyclability of raw materials. Since we work very closely with the industry leaders in the PET-packaging business, we are subsequently challenged too. Many multinationals that we serve have a specific corporate goal to reduce their environmental impact, looking at every link in their value chain. That also means that we as a supplier and service company have to comply, and we do that by staying ahead of the game. As a company, we have never taken the reactive approach to market trends, technological developments and challenges, so for us, it’s a no-brainer to try and reduce our carbon footprint proactively.” Taking pride in their attention to detail, and keeping their “zero-concessions” policy at the heart of their everyday decision-making, HRC strives to lead the way in low-environmental impact performance as well. The facility has been running on 100% renewable energy since 2019, but that’s not where it ends. Refurbishment minimises carbon footprint “It’s often overlooked, but when comparing newly built machinery versus overhauling such machinery, in many cases there’s a huge offset in CO2 emissions. Especially when there is steel involved, a closer look is often worthwhile. Since the manufacturing and forging of steel is a pretty carbonheavy process”, Árpád continues. “We take a standard 96 cavity PET hot runner as an example. When we make a full refurbishment on such a system, which brings the complete hot runner back to 100% new condition, the carbon footprint is up to 5.6 t less than that of a new manufacturing of such a hot runner. So, not only does a refurbishment save a significant amount of capital expenditure to the customer (without any concession versus a new hot runner), but it also helps achieve the customer’s environmental goals.” “Without a proper working hot runner system, all other efforts tend to fall short” But the biggest impact of the hot runner on emissions is surely its reliability and performance. “When a complete PET system is continuously running at its fastest cycle time, within quality specifications, without stops or breakdowns, that’s when emissions are lowest. When the dryer delivers the material as hot and as consistent as possible, the extruder has to “work” less hard to get to a homogenous melt within the cycle time available. If then the hot runner delivers that melt to all cavities with every shot, that’s the sweet spot of a system. Rigorous preventative maintenance on the complete line is of course a huge must to achieve this, but we take pride in being able to provide the best service to a key part of the process. Without a proper working hot runner system, all MOULD MAKING Tamás Horváth (left) and Árpád Horváth founded HRC in 2006
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