Plastics News Europe - November/December 2019 - 10

BLOW MOULDING

Newest blow moulders
are smart and sustainable
At the recent K trade fair, the news from the blow moulding sector - like the rest of the show -
was mainly themed around the circular economy and recycling, as well as developments in PET
processing. Plastics News staff reporter Catherine Kavanaugh scoured the K show for blow
moulding news and developments, turning up, among others, these highlights.

ack at K 2016, Michael Mehnert
had just joined the upper management ranks of Bekum
Maschinenfabriken GmbH, an extrusion blow moulding technology business started by his father, Gottfried
Mehnert, in 1959.
He was 34 at the time and was
facing questions about what his leadership would mean for the Berlin-based company, focused on packaging for the food and beverage,
consumer goods and pharmaceutical
markets.
"There was talk about the shift of
generations," Mehnert said. "I said
change would come in incremental
steps. It may be in design. It may be in
software. Of course, we did that and
more."
Now, three years later, Bekum has
launched and sold a sleek, new machine dubbed the Concept 808 just in
time for the company's 60th anniversary booth celebration.
This eighth-generation blow
moulding machine - the Concept
808 - makes selective use of the

company's eye-catching yellow colour
at the top and base and features wide
polycarbonate windows to show off
the inner workings.
The modern exterior houses numerous technical improvements to
produce containers in sizes from 250
ml to 3 litres for packaging consumer
products, such as laundry detergent,
personal care products and automotive lubricants.
An optional magnetic quick
mould-change system makes it possible to swap out moulds and adjust
the blow pins in 30 minutes, or about
15 minutes per clamp. This is an important feature for processors who
often do production changes, Gary
Carr, vice president of sales for Bekum America, said.
"A mould change for a machine
of this size with a standard quickchange system would probably take
two to four hours," Carr said. "This is
a really significant development."
The Concept 808 also has a new
extruder option - HiPEx36D - that provides a homogenous high melt while
reducing energy use by 20 percent.
"The key development here allows
us to do a gentler melt of the polymer
over a longer time, and by doing that,

The newly launched Concept 808. Inset: Bekum managing partner, Michael Mehnert

Photos: Caroline Seidel

Bekum marks 60
years with new
concept machine

you use less torque, which uses less
power," Carr said. "It's a great innovation. I think the market will be very
interested."
Then there's the new 24-inch operator panel with a touchscreen - Bekum Control 8.0 - to check throughput values and energy consumption.
"We did a lot with Industry 4.0,"
Mehnert said. "There are data sensors for temperature, energy usage,
air consumption and water cooling.
We programmed a new dashboard
accessible from every internet browser from your smartphone or tablet or
laptop if you give access to it. And
there are time filters, for example, to
match cooling water temperature to
energy consumption in one diagram
to analyse the data over a period of
hours or a week."
To spur the circular economy, Bekum officials say the machine's tri-extrusion technology offers a cost-effective solution for recycling single-origin
polyethylene and polypropylene scrap.
The post-consumer material can be
sandwiched between layers of virgin
material, which reduces the cost of
manufacturing containers.
The Concept 808 show machine
at K 2019 was demonstrating a
three-layer application for 1 litre
HDPE bottles made with post-consumer material in 16 cavities.
"Post-consumer resin is being
mandated for a lot of consumer products," Carr said. "Our whole industry
is under pressure to be more responsible in handling and managing materials. Three layers is a wonderful solution with an inner layer of virgin and
an outer layer that's coloured for package aesthetics. There's no need to pigment the whole bottle. It's very prevalent in the personal care market as a
way to recycle and have some economies of scale by pigment savings."
The Concept 808 is the same size
machine as the one Bekum showed at
NPE, and it has the company's patented C-base frame clamp, but the similarities will end there going forward.
"I have a new series in mind, and
it will have all these Concept 808
technologies, but it may take two
years," Mehnert said. "That's why we

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019

Plastics News Europe - November/December 2019

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