Vacurema technology

Vacurema

Erema's Vacurema systems offer modular solutions for different solutions for recycling of PET bottles. The patented process is designed for the recycling of post consumer PET bottle flakes, PET in-house waste and also PE-HD bottle flakes.

Erema claims that there are currently more than 150 Vacurema systems in use around the world, producing high-quality pellets and end products with an overall capacity of over 1 million tonnes.

Basic principles

* Flexibility with input material

Depending on the end application the system processes PET bottle flakes, ground amorphous skeleton waste/edge trim and virgin material (also in mixtures), i.e. bulk densities of 250 to 850 kg/m³.

* Food contact compliant decontamination

Thanks to the patented pre-treatment of PET flakes, IV increase and decontamination are fast, reliable and energy-saving. This means that FDA quality (among other things) can be ensured for the end products produced. Surface to volume ratio for flakes is 2.5 times higher than for pellets

Bottle flakes Pre-ground with 12 mm screen, average wall thickness approx. 0.1 to 0.4 mm Pellets Typical dimensions: diameter approx. 2.5 mm x 3 mm length or ball shap

* IV stability through vacuum treatment

Despite varying moisture levels and different IV values in the input material, stable IV values are achieved through the patented pre-treatment method. This means, therefore, that input materials with higher material moisture levels can also be recycled.

* Melting under vacuum

The patented pre-treatment at raised temperature and in high vacuum before the extrusion process removes moisture and migration materials from the feedstock very effectively and in a stable process environment. This prevents any hydrolytic and oxidative decomposition of the melt in the extruder.

* Low thermal stress

The very short extruder screw without additional extruder degassing reduces the thermal stress on the material through minimised dwell time.

* Large area ultrafine melt filtration

EREMA filter systems have very large active filter surfaces. This enables filtration with up to 32 μm fineness at low pressure. The result is highly clean pellets.

* Compact design

Thanks to their compact design, VACUREMA systems require much less space than other systems.

* Minimum production costs with ecoSAVE

Electricity accounts for 38% of the costs of bottle-to-bottle recycling. Thanks to integrated ecoSAVE technology, the lowest production costs of all systems on the market.

* Smart Start principle

The plant‘s software-based process control system gives you extremely easy and reliable operation and premium user-friendliness including automatic start-up at the press of a button, fully automatic continuous operation, permanent monitoring for direct food contact (FCC) and the storage of all relevant process parameters.

* Turnkey solutions

Erema delivers turnkey systems with support from one contact for the entire recycling process: sorting – washing – decontamination – extrusion – quality control – end product.

Three application fields

Bottle-to-Bottle rPET pellets which not only fulfil but exceed all current minimum requirements with regard to direct food contact for PET packaging solutions: that is the end product in bottle-to-bottle recycling with VACUREMA Prime technology. This high-end PET extrusion system features two crystallisation dryers operating in batch mode. A compact, space-saving all-in-one solution which achieves IV increases and a remarkable cleaning effect. As the user you are flexible at all times and can react quickly to current market requirements: whether it‘s decontaminated, pre-dried and crystallised rPET flakes or high-quality, melt-filtered rPET pellets – products produced using VACUREMA Prime technology fulfil the respective criteria of the FDA, EFSA and many major brand owners. If IV values of > 0.9 dl/g or very high throughputs (> 2500 kg/h) are required, EREMA can offer VACUREMA technology also in combination with an SSP solution from Polymetrix.