Extrusion International 3-2024

25 Extrusion International 3/2024 components were on display in the joint Coperion and Schenck Process FPM booth. With the combination of Coperion and Herbold Meckesheim technol- ogy and know-how, the two com - panies are able to provide efficient plastics recycling solutions from mechanical processing – shredding, washing, separating, drying, and agglomerating of plastics – to bulk material handling, feeding and ex - trusion, as well as compounding, pel - letizing and odor reduction, to com - plete systems. Customers have access to individual components as well as complete recycling systems from a single source, supplying highest end product quality and throughputs. Since their merger, both companies have continued to develop and op- timally attune their technologies so that entire systems excel in opera- tion with extremely high efficiency. For feeding voluminous flakes and fibers (PET and other plastics) efficiently into a ZSK twin screw ex - truder, Coperion showed the inno - vative, recently developed Coperion ZS-B 70 MEGAfeed side feeder. Plastic recyclate with a bulk density starting as low as 20 kg/m³, long considered intake-limited and thus not worth recycling, can be reliably fed in large quantities into smaller sizes of Coperion’s ZSK twin screw extruders and be concurrently re- cycled and compounded. Conventional technologies for re- cycling PET require pre-drying and crystallization of flakes and fibers before they can be re-processed. Us- ing Coperion's ZS-B 70 MEGAfeed side feeder, PET recyclate can be introduced directly into the ZSK ex- truder. Recyclers profit particularly from the very high end product qual- ity. Thanks to the ZSK’s very good devolatilization properties, volatile components such as monomers, oligomers and water are reliably re- moved. Savings in operating and lo- gistics costs aswell as reduced energy consumption are further advantages of Coperion systems for recycling PET. The high quality of recycled PET manufactured using this innovative Coperion process was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administra- tion (FDA) for direct contact with food (letter of non-objection). Thehigh-performanceHV70plast- compactor, also on display in the booth, is the most powerful of the series from Herbold Meckesheim. It processes the feedstock in continu- ous operation between a rotating and a fixed compactor disk, which are equipped with screwed-on and easily exchangeable kneading bars. HV plastcompactors can be used to agglomerate a wide variety of ma- terials into products of high bulk density: thermoplastics such as fi - bers, fine particles, small tapes, foams, stretch or thin films, pow - ders or shavings, as well as plastics that are difficult to convey, stock or mix. The HV 70 moreover combines high throughput and low wear costs with a fully automatic control system in which settings for differ- ent feedstocks can be recorded. Thanks to performance and tem- perature monitoring, the process is controlled in such a way that only a minimum of personnel is required. Also on display was the Schenck Process FPM MechaTron® Flat Bot- tom (FB) feeder. This high-capacity stainless steel feeder is designed spe- cifically for handling materials with light and fluffy characteristics. With a bottom driven vertical agitator and an auxiliary agitator, the MechaTron FB is perfect for hard to feed mate- rials such as chopped polypropylene or PET plastic film when feeding to an extruder. Since 2023 Schenck Pro - cess FPM is part of Coperion; both brands presented their joint forces for the first time at this year’s NPE. Coperion’s twin screw extruder technology possess numerous ad- vantages that are especially benefi - cial in chemical recycling of plastics. The technology is particularly well suited for an efficient energy ad - dition and covers a broad range of throughputs. On larger ZSK extru- sion machines, throughputs of up to 20 t/h ensure continuous feeding of the reactor. Cameron Kheradi, Head of Process Technology at Coperion USA, said: “Plastics recycling is one of the core topics that we are emphatically pro- moting in order to better support the plastics industry on its path to a circular economy. We are very proud of our newly developed technologies and processes that achieve first-class product quality and make plastics re- cycling significantly more efficient. The innovative ZS-B MEGAfeed even makes it possible to recycle certain plastic fibers and flake in the first place. With our new Recycling Inno- vation Center, we have the optimal environment for developing further technologies and working together with our customers to optimize recy- cling processes.” Coperion GmbH www.coperion.com Herbold Meckesheim www.herbold.com With complete systems for plastics recycling from a single source, Coperion and Herbold are setting new standards for the industry (Photo: Coperion, Stuttgart, Germany) The HV 70 plastcompactor is the most powerful of the series from Herbold Meckesheim. It processes the feedstock in continuous operation between a rotating and a fixed compactor disk, which are equipped with screwed-on and easily exchangeable kneading bars (Photo: Herbold Meckesheim, Meckesheim, Germany)