EVENT REVIEW PETplanet Insider Vol. 25 No. 01+02/24 www.petpla.net 38 PET blow moulds and machinery In the run-up to the Brau Beviale trade fair PETplanet took the opportunity to organise a PETinar on mould making and blowing machinery. PETplanet was particularly proud to enlist the support of the machine manufacturer 1Blow and mould manufacturer Röders Tec as speakers. These companies have been working together on a number of projects for many years. Olivier Perche, Sales Director at 1Blow and Steffen Lühning, Sales Manager at Röders Tec presented their technical and mould innovations. The PETinar was moderated by Ruari McCallion, Editor at PETplanet. 1Blow company Olivier first introduced the company 1Blow, a French machine manufacturer of PET bottles. He said that 1Blow has been growing steadily since the company’s founding in 2010. “We have sold around 215 machines so far,” he explained. Thanks to this growth over the years, the company relocated in 2014 to expand its production facilities and in 2016 built a factory hall dedicated exclusively to testing new shapes, new colours or new materials etc. for their customers. 1Blow also offers its customers the option of ordering their spare parts online, and an additional warehouse was built to meet expected demand. Online instructions, e.g. for preventive maintenance or changeover have also been made available on this special website thanks to several tutorials. Olivier went on: “As far as our offer is concerned, the company produces linear two-stage PET blow moulding machines.” The machines are available with one to five cavities, with a production speed of 1,000 to 9,000bph. Bottle sizes from 100ml to 30 l can be manufactured. The machines can produce typical PET bottles from round to oval shapes, using standard preforms, even with neck orientation which is achieved mechanically. Olivier cited a squeeze bottle with a flip-top closure for sauces as a typical application. All machines are equipped with servo drives. He added that this gives the operator control over the entire process within the machine. 1Blow exports its machines around the globe. Saving energy As an example, Olivier presented a 1Blow 2XL machine to explain special features for reducing power consumption and production costs. He began with the electric cabinet. “It has an integrated power recovery system. After every braking phase recovered energy is sent back to the other drivers in the machine. This saves 2-3%, a good starting point,“ Olivier stated. He went on to the heating. “There are three ovens on this 2-cavity machine. The operator can adjust each lamp in the ovens individually. With special Eco lamps, energy savings of up to 34% were achieved. These lamps focus the infrared energy on each preform.” Finally, Olivier explained the energy savings of the machine’s compressors. “Each bottle processes specifies the limitation of low air pressure. The compressed air can be adjusted with the reducer,” Olivier explained. He gave some figures: A reduction from 40 to 35 bar lowers air consumption by 12.5%: a reduction from 40 to 26bar requires 35% less compressed air. A compressor size of 40bar with an application of 30bar requires 20% less power. Further energy savings are achieved by the Air Recovery System. A fourth valve is added to the valve bloc. After blowing, the valves push the air to a 7bar vessel. Olivier also emphasised the excellent accessibility of the machine and the quick changeovers. Röders Tec Steffen then stepped up to the microphone to introduce the mould maker Röders Tec. The company is a sixth generation family business. Mr Jürgen Röders is currently Managing Director. Röders Tec was founded in 1814 and has been producing blow moulds since 1975. With around 500 employees in its three divisions pewter casting, blow mould manufacturing and high speed milling machines, Röders Tec produce around 6,000 moulds per year on three production sites covering 10,000m2. The company produces the blow mould inhouse. During the company’s history, numerous exclusive partnerships have been established with the most important machine suppliers such as Krones, KHS, Sidel and Sipa. Röders Tec developed the first quickchange solution in the 1990s and was the first German company to utilise 3D CAD/CAM technology. In 2001, Röders Tec opened subsidiaries in America and China, followed by Vietnam in 2012. Since 2019, Röders has been using a 1Blow machine to test new bottle projects from its customers. Any type of mould can be installed on the 1Blow machine. Energy-efficient blow moulds Röders has developed a low-pressure base mould that is available for bottle formats from 0.33 l to 2.5 l. It can be used for all petaloid and CSD types. The base has a special geometry with special venting holes and grooves, allowing the air to be expelled efficiently. The advantage of this technology is a better material flow, which means that the PET blow-moulding pressure can be reduced, and a lightweight bottle design is also possible. In addition, the venting channels do not affect the stability of the bottle. Steffen explained that with a 1.5 l mould only the base cup needs to be replaced without having to invest in a completely new mould set. In summary, he said that all potential results depend on local conditions. Röders also offers technical support on site to train customers’ operators to understand how stabilising the blowing process can result in reduced energy and material consumption. Steffen also shared some figures from previous projects with Coca-Cola and Pepsi. For a 330ml bottle of Coca-Cola, which was blowmoulded on a Krones Contiform Gen. 3 (2015), the pressure before the lowpressure base moulds were installed was approximately 25bar, afterwards it was approximately 17 bar. www.1blow.com www.roeders.de The video of this PETinar can be viewed on the PETplanet website. www.petpla.net/category/petinars/ PETINAR
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