Here, we cast a glance on some of the technologies of interest to film and sheet extruders. Plast, the Italian exhibition for the plastics industry, returned to the Fiera Milano this year. Figures released in March show a total of 1,100 exhibiting companies. Of these, 870 are direct exhibitors – of which one-third are from outside Italy. This foreign participation is up 21% in number compared to the last show, said the organiser, Promaplast. Overall, this accounts for around 52,000 sqm of exhibition space. At the last edition of the show, in 2015, there were 1,584 exhibitors across nearly 55,000 sqm.
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| Easycool: air cooled compact chiller |
Promaplast is making much of the fact that Plast was this time co-located with four other shows that have some overlapping interests with the plastics industry. Some of these shows – which cover packaging, printing, meat processing and logistics – were of interest to film and sheet extruders.
Ancillaries company Piovan, for instance, has exhibited at both the Plast and Ipack-Ima shows. "The concurrence of the two shows is the ideal opportunity to offer new products, and high-level engineering for both the plastics and the food processing worlds," said the company. At Plast, it mainly featured its Aquatech brand, which specialises in industrial cooling, such as its Easycool+ range of air-cooled chillers. The show also saw the Italian debut of Easytherm, its new temperature control line, which it says is "Industry 4.0 digital factory-ready thanks to the OPC-UA protocol". A new internal and external layout, redesigned ergonomic controls and high-end components make this a versatile unit that allows smart energy use management, it says.
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| Winenergy: energy use monitoring and analysis |
Piovan also showed its Winenergy and Winfactory 4.0 was featured on touchscreens. Winenergy is the energy use monitoring and analysis system comprising proprietary software that is connected to a series of measuring devices – which acquire data about a variety of physical parameters including power, electricity, thermal energy and temperature. It can be installed on its own or in combination with Winfactory 4.0, to maximise system control and efficiency.
Piovan also showed its Quantum E gravimetric batch blender with continuous extrusion control, and demonstrated a system with a Pureflo filterless granule receiver, Modula series auto-adaptive drying system, and Quantum Q7 batch blender for medical applications.
