© Starlinger & Co. GmbH. Recycling of plastic films Starlinger ND Moscow, January 25, 2012 Paul Niedl. Head of Sales- recycling technology.

© Starlinger & Co. GmbH.


Recycling of plastic films

Starlinger

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Moscow, January 25, 2012

Paul Niedl. Head of Sales- recycling technology


Table of content


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• company introduction

• film recycling: definitions and applications

• machinery and equipment



company introduction

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© Starlinger & Co. GmbH.ND

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• Family owned business, founded 1835 in Vienna

• World leader in machinery for woven packaging

• Diversified in Business Units

• Recycling equipment since 1987

Business unit since 2002

• 550 employees in Austria (Vienna,

Weißenbach)

• Regional hubs for sales, service and parts

• Turnover of appr. USD 250 million


© Starlinger & Co. GmbH.ND

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recoSTAR basic recoSTAR PET iV+ viscoSTARrecoSTAR universal



film recycling:

definitions and applications

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Sources of waste- Definitions

• Production waste

- In house recycling

- Post industrial recycling

- Toll recycling

• Post consumer waste

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Recycling of plastic filmsPage 7


• Inline or Offline recycling?

• Different shapes of waste (from light-weight blown film to hard-to-grind start-uplumps) needs to be handled

• Recycling line has to be operated in addition to the production lines

• Material management for waste has unfortunately not highest priority-

• -but decent material management avoids contamination

• High amount of re-granulate should be (directly) fed back into production line without influencing film quality

• Edge-trim recycling must be completely automatic (e.g. stand-by mode when film line is stopped)

Issues inhouse recycling

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Issues post industrial recycling

• Different materials: Quick changeover required

• Mixing of different material from clients must be avoided- - if toll recycling

• Mixing of different material to increase value or decrease cost- - if not toll recycling.

Issues post consumer recycling

• Sorting required?

• Washing or Dry-washing required?

• Economically feasible?

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Film recycling: A wide range from commodity to specialty

• single layer unprinted

• multilayer materials

• machine direction or bi-axially oriented film

• material partially or heavily printed- influence on re-use

• metallised

• humidity from outside storage or hygroscopic humidity

• solid contamination could be a demanding job for melt filtration

• ultra fine filtration

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Film recycling: A wide range from commodity to specialty

• LLDPE, LDPE, HDPE

• OPP, BOPP, PP

• BOPA

• BOPET

• PLA and other bioplastics

• and others

Pick the right recycling equipment depending on the requirements

recoSTAR basic or recoSTAR universal

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machinery and equipment

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recoSTAR basic and recoSTAR universal- process flow

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• extrusion and pelletising of plastic films

• difference is pre-treatment section only


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recoSTAR basic recoSTAR universal

• agglomerator/extruder combination• precutting may be required depending on

input material• higher moisture possible• inline application, high automation poss.

• single shaft cutter/extruder combination• no precutting required

• cold cutting & feeding• high automation

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recoSTAR universal- working principle

• Single shaft cutter connected parallel to single screw extruder

• Material gets cut in single shaft cutter and cold fed with speed controlled dosing screw into extruder

• Exact dosing of material and control of output possible thanks to three drive design

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• Material is fed without precutting into recycling line.

• Feeding per conveyor belt and/or nip roll feeder and/or edge trim cyclone possible.

recoSTAR universal- feeding options

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• Single shaft cutter runs slowly and is water

cooled or oil heated. Single shaft cutter will

automatically reverse and cut loose.

• “Cold” cutting

• Round hopper bottom & pusher avoids bridging

• Bearings fixed outside of cutting chamber,

central greasing system.

• High storage capacity reducing operator

interference

• Knives turn able increasing life-time

• Exact cutting geometry/high output/low energy

recoSTAR universal- single shaft cutter

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• material gets cut, dried and thermally compacted in the agglomerator drum

• pre-heating of material by friction

• temperature raised to just under melting point

• rotating disc (400-700 rpm), stainless steel with knives

• continuously feeding of compacted material into extruder by centrifugal force

• rate of material feeding is controlled automatically by load of agglomerator motor.

recoSTAR basic- working principle

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recoSTAR basic- feeding options

• Precutting may be required depending on material to be processed.

• Feeding per conveyor belt and/or nip roll feeder and/or edge trim cyclone possible.

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Page 19Recycling of plastic films


• Single screw extruder with air cooling.

• 24 L/D w/o degassing, 40 L/D w/ degassing.

• Smooth metering zone.

• Vacuum degassing reduces moisture, ink, spin finish

• Non-sensitive water ring vacuum pump (option rotary vane high vacuum pump)

• Impurities are captured in oil condenser for proper disposal.

• Closed circuit with heat exchanger in stainless steel.

• Heavily printed film up to 100% and/or multi color:- 2 degassing extensions to a total 56 L/D

- adding of CaCO3 powder to avoid ink build up

Extruder

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• Automatic filter, no production stop for screen changing process

• Backflushing filter extends service life of screens

• Design: Straight melt flow, no dead spots, big open screen surface, deaeration valve

Double piston filter Double piston backflushing filter

Continuous melt filter without and with backflushing

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Continuous melt filter with Power backflushing

• for processing of material with higher

degree of contamination

• for processing of material with expected

contamination peaks

• power backflush pressure provided

by external hydraulic cylinder i.e.

filter will be flushed with high pressure

• pressure constant, back flush separated

• piston cleanable on complete surface

• main advantage:

low melt loss during filtration, less filter discs required

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• PE, PS, PP with MFI ≤ 80, PA 6 and others

spherical/lenticular granules,

low investment, easy to handle,

low operating costs

• Knife head supported in die head

ensuring parallelism

• Magnetic clutch for knife head drive

• Easy and quick knife change,

no adjustment required

• Coarse grain separation

Water Ring Pelletizer


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• Variety of dies (number / diameter of holes) and knife heads (number of knives) available for different material

• Cooling-hose flexible set-up for adjusted cooling time

• Centrifuge for excellent drying (< 0.1 %)

Water Ring Pelletizer

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• PET, PA, PP with MFI >80 < 0,3% crystallinity for PET and others.

• cylindrical pellets

+ low investment

+ flexible application

+ low operating costs

- limited in throughput due to the handling

- operator always needed

- no automatic operation

Strand Pelletizer

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• all thermoplasts

• cylindrical pellets

+ automatic operation

+ flexible application

+ broken strands are automatically re-inserted

+ for high througput

- investment

Automatic Strand Pelletizer

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• PE, PP max. MFI 200, PET iV > 0.6, PA and others

• PET iV < 0.6 with melt pump

• spherical granules

+ low space demand

+ inline crystallistion for PET

+ for high throughputs

+ savings on energy consumption

+ easy handling

- investment

- maintenance

Under Water Pelletizer


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Under Water Pelletizer with inline crystallisation

• for PET:~15% crystallinity,

+ additional savings on energy consumption.

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Extruder Ø Output (w/o venting) Output (with venting)

65 150 – 230 kg/h 130 - 200 kg/h

85 280 – 400 kg/h 230 – 350 kg/h

105 400 – 600 kg/h 350 – 500 kg/h

125 650 – 850 kg/h 550 – 800 kg/h

165 900 - 1400 kg/h 720 - 1300 kg/h

Available machine capacities

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• The full Starlinger recoSTAR product range installed

• Laboratory for MFR, IV, color, moisture, impurity and other tests

• Trials for clients

• R&D internally

Technical Center in Weissenbach near Vienna

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Thank you for your participation


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© Starlinger & Co. GmbH. Recycling of plastic films Starlinger ND Moscow, January 25, 2012 Paul Niedl. Head of Sales- recycling technology.

Documents

recycling line

offline recycling

recycling technology

right recycling equipment

consumer recycling sorting

plastic films difference

equipment nd page

applications nd page