Plastics News - Show Daily - October 24, 2022 - 26

26 * Plastics News, October 24, 2022
SHOW DAILY
Garbage in, quality
out with Reifenhäuser
EVO Fusion lines
By David Vink
Plastics News Correspondent
A new UltraCool 2.0 FFS (formfi
ll-seal) blown fi lm cooling ring
from Troisdorf, Germany-based
Reifenhäuser GmbH & Co. KG
was prominently displayed at
the company's K booth. It increases
cooling capacity by
more than 20 percent, leading
to record output of above 600
kilograms per hour when using
a 175-millimeter die to produce
fi lm for heavy-duty sacks.
Shredded fi lm waste has usually
been downcycled for injection
molding. But the co-rotating
twin-screw plasticizing screw on
Reifenhäuser EVO Fusion lines
homogenizes the shredded fi lm
directly without
intermediate
granulation, producing blown
fi lm from low-quality recyclate. A
single-screw version suffi ces with
better-quality shredded fi lm.
Reifenhäuser Chief Technical
Offi cer Bernd Kunze said at K
that this solution, involving appropriate
degassing, breaks the
usual rules, replacing " garbage
in, garbage out " with " garbage
in, quality out. " He said the line
can handle printed PET/polyethylene,
PE-based sticky fi lm,
post-consumer recycled granulate
and even PCR " fl uff. " It requires,
however, precise control
to ensure stable melt fl ow, Kunze
added. Asked about bubble stability,
Kunze said Reifenhäuser
is happy with its high-tech approach:
" We don't need overkill. "
The company is showing a fulJoin
us in the BeOne World
of Sustainable Innovation
Experience the
Difference
Hall 14 A16/A18
ly recyclable all-PE monomaterial
food packaging pouch with
oxygen and water vapor barrier
properties. Key to this development
is low EVOH barrier
content of below the 5 percent
foreign substance content now
required by packaging legislation
and achieved by stretching
the fi lm in an EVO Ultra Stretch
unit. Stretching alone makes
a contribution toward barrier
properties by making the fi lm
structure more crystalline, so
that the EVOH or other barrier
material content can be reduced
for the same barrier effect. A
toothpaste tube displayed at
the booth was produced from a
coextruded tube fi lm with less
than 5 percent EVOH content
and no lamination.
In the case of pouches with
PET and PE layers in the center,
Business Development and
Sustainability Director Tim Pohl
said no one believed it could be
extruded as recyclate, but Reifenhäuser
shows an example at
REIFENHÄUSER
GMBH & CO. KG
Hall 17,
Booth C22
Reifenhäuser Chief Technical Offi cer Bernd Kunze said Reifenhäuser is
happy with its high-tech approach: " We don't need overkill. "
Plastics News photos by Marco Stepniak
its parallel open house in Troisdorf,
where post-consumer recyclate
was used in a three-layer
bag, but in the center layer " due
to the smell. "
A high-performance vacuum
unit applied to the twin-screw
extruder in PET cast fi lm lines
now enables PET recyclate to be
processed directly into new fi lm,
such as for thermoformed food
packing trays, without pre-treatment
and pre-drying. This
means lower investment cost for
additional line components and
lower energy consumption.
Pohl referred to a new carbon
footprint dashboard that is now
standard with every Reifenhäuser
line supplied, as an aid to
" more sustainable and economical
production, " so that processors
can increase their overall
economic effi ciency (OEE). This
is supported by a " c.Hub, " as
" middleware " exchanging data
securely between different IT
systems, applications, extrusion
machines and line controls, also
with third-party systems. The
system is open, so processors
can use it to improve transparency,
traceability and troubleshooting.
Pohl pointed out: " If
you ask a software company for
this, you are trapped. "
A new " precise, autonomous,
mechatronic " calibration option
for cast (fl at) fi lm and sheet coextrusion
and coating applications
enables adapters and dies to be
more rapidly controlled via the
line operating panel than with
conventional hand or hot and
therefore unsafe expansion bolt
adjustments. It results in faster
startup time, changeover time reduced
to 30 minutes with 11-layer
fi lm and less scrap material. Even
inexperienced operators can call
up existing recipes for renewed
production, Reifenhäuser claims.
Tim Pohl, business
development and
sustainability director for
Reifenhäuser, at K 2022.
http://www.jumbosteel-tw.com
Plastics News - Show Daily - October 24, 2022

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