Pioneering technologies for the compounding and recycling of plastics and for the production of bioplastics

Enhanced plastics compounding, recycling and processing of bioplastics

At this year's Chinaplas, Coperion will be presenting the versatile and efficient processing applications of its ZSK and STS twin screw extruders as well as its engineering expertise in groundbreaking applications such as the recycling of plastics and the production of bioplastics. A ZSK 58 Mc18 twin screw extruder with a specific torque of 18 Nm/cm³ will be on display, characterized by its consistently high throughput capacity with first-class product quality. It has been locally assembled at Coperion’s manufacturing site in Nanjing, China. With the assembly in China, Coperion is able to react as fast as possible to customer demand. Customers benefit from local added value, transport and tax savings as well as from shorter delivery times. Even after-sales services are customized to local parts and needs. The ZSK ZSK 58 Mc18 extruder will be outfitted with a Coperion K-Tron K-ML-SFS-KT20 twin screw loss-in-weight feeder.

In addition to compounding and recycling, Coperion extruders are suitable for the production of bioplastics. This process places very high demands on the extrusion system due to the diversity of base polymers being used and the variety of recipes. Coperion has already realized numerous systems for the production of bioplastics and therefore has comprehensive engineering know-how in designing the process steps needed to achieve the required mechanical properties of the bioplastic end product.

The STS 25 Mc11 laboratory extruder that Coperion will show at Chinaplas, has a 25 mm screw diameter and features a simple design. It is operator-friendly and easy to clean. By having the same screw diameter ratio Do/Di of 1.55 and the same maximum specific torque Md/a³ of 11.3 Nm/cm³ as the entire STS Mc11 extruder series, production parameters can be reliably scaled up to a larger STS model. To extend the process window, Coperion has increased the screw speed of the STS 25 Mc11 to 1,200 min-1. This way the laboratory extruder is ideally suited for recipe development and basic scientific research with small batch sizes of 2 kg and achieves throughput rates of up to 110 kg/h. The STS 25 Mc11 which Coperion will exhibit at Chinaplas will be shown with a Colormax Systems C/S-LW-NT28 twin screw loss-in-weight feeder.

Complete plastics recycling plants from a single source

Together, Coperion and Herbold Meckesheim realize entire plants for plastics recycling. From mechanical processing – shredding, washing, separating, drying and agglomerating of plastics – to bulk material handling as well as feeding and extrusion all the way to compounding and pelletizing, their systems cover the entire process chain for reclaiming plastics.
Coperion and Herbold Meckesheim achieve solutions for mechanical recycling of post-industrial and post-consumer waste, chemical recycling, solvent-based recycling, and deodorization, tailored to the type of plastic being recycled. Together, they will be showing a PET recycling plant simulation at Chinaplas, demonstrating their expertise in numerous plastics recycling processes. Booth visitors can look directly into the process steps and view the construction and functionality of key technologies.

Coperion K-Tron feeders for maximum flexibility

Also on display will be a high-accuracy Coperion K-Tron K2-ML-D5-T35/S60 quick change feeder, featuring the ActiFlow™ smart bulk solid activator and Electronic Pressure Compensation (EPC) in combination with a 2400 Series vacuum receiver for refill. The T35/S60 quick change feeder (QC) on display is designed for applications requiring quick changeover of materials and convenience of fast cleaning. The QC feeder allows for fast removal of the entire feeding module with screws in place for replacement with a second unit. Twin and single screw feeding modules are available.

The ActiFlow™ smart bulk solid activator offers an innovative method to reliably prevent bridging and rat-holing of cohesive bulk materials in stainless steel hoppers without internal hopper agitation. The smart flow aid applies gentle vibrations to the hopper wall, hereby carefully activating the contained material with the optimal amplitude and frequency. It is designed specifically to work with Coperion K-Tron’s line of gravimetric loss-in-weight feeders.

2400 Series vacuum receivers provide a high-capacity sequencing system primarily used where larger conveying rates or long distances are required, in applications with one or multiple destinations. They are designed to high quality standards for pneumatically conveying powder, pellets and granular materials for most industries. Conveying rates range from 327 to 6,804 kg/h (720 to 15,000 lb/h). The 2415 pellet receiver will be on display at Chinaplas 2023.

Monoflo International Inc. recycles millions of pounds of scrap in-house for use in its products

From the Summer 2022 Edition of
Plastics Recycling Magazine

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HILLENBRAND TO ACQUIRE HERBOLD MECKESHEIM, EXPANDING CUSTOMER OFFERING FOR COMPLETE RECYCLING SOLUTIONS

Hillenbrand, Inc. (NYSE: HI) has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Herbold Meckesheim GmbH (Herbold) for an enterprise value of approximately €79 million.The transaction is expected to close during the fiscal fourth quarter of 2022, subject to regulatory approval and customary closing conditions.

Based in Meckesheim, Germany, Herbold is a leader in recycling systems, specializing in key process steps such as washing, separating, drying, shredding, and pulverizing. With annual revenue of more than €50 million, Herbold is highly complementary to the equipment and solutions offered under our Coperion brand and will accelerate Hillenbrand’s growth opportunities in the recycling end market. At the completion of this transaction, Herbold will join the Coperion and Rotex brands as part of Hillenbrand’s Advanced Process Solutions (APS) segment. The APS segment is focused on highly engineered industrial processing solutions and aftermarket parts and services for a variety of end markets and applications.

“I am very excited to announce the acquisition of Herbold, which reinforces our commitment to growing as a world-class industrial company, executing our strategy to deliver long-term shareholder value, and accelerating our efforts to support a more sustainable future,” said Kim Ryan, President and CEO of Hillenbrand. “Herbold expands our position in the recycling end market, which has attractive, long-term growth prospects due to macro demand drivers for durable plastics and the desire for more sustainable solutions. Herbold will have a strong strategic fit with our Coperion brand, and together, we will be able to offer complete recycling solutions to our customers. Finally, we expect to enhance Herbold’s performance through the deployment of the Hillenbrand Operating Model and utilization of our global sales and service capabilities.” 

About Hillenbrand

Hillenbrand is a global industrial company operating in over 40 countries with over 10,000 associates serving a wide variety of industries around the world. Guided by our Purpose — Shape What Matters For Tomorrow™ — we pursue excellence, collaboration, and innovation to consistently shape solutions that best serve our associates, customers, communities, and other stakeholders. Hillenbrand's portfolio includes brands such as Coperion, Milacron Injection Molding & Extrusion, and Mold-Masters, in addition to Batesville.

HOT WASH SYSTEM FOR RECYCLING POLYOLEFINS

Drawing from its vast assortment of proven plastics recycling equipment, Herbold can custom configure Wash Plants for polyolefins capable of producing high-quality, food grade recyclates.

While each wash plant is designed around the user’s specific requirements and facility characteristics, all feature a multi-stage process usually consisting of pre-shredding, pre-washing / initial separation, granulation, high density separation, and drying.

Pre-shredding is typically done in a single-shaft shredder such as the Herbold 60/120. With a 23.5” diameter rotor and 60 individual knives, these rugged machines can accept entire bales of contaminated waste and process up to 13,000 lbs. per hour.

Washing takes place in a VWE-60 pre-washing unit which employees a 3-step process of sink/swim to remove heavy materials, intensive spray wash to loosen and remove embedded sediment and an additional sink/swim to further eliminate remaining sediment.

Further size reduction takes place in a wet granulator such as the Herbold 80/120. The wet operation provides additional separation of particles and contaminants from materials.

Additional high-density separation of contaminants and recyclate occurs in a Hydrocyclone. The extreme centrifugal force of the Hydrocylcone provides separation that exceeds conventional methods by a factor of 15 ensuring the level of purity necessary for food grade recyclate.

After final separation, materials are conveyed to either a mechanical or thermal dryer for removal of residual moisture prior to use or storage.

Five times more flakes from recycled PET bottles

Herbold Meckesheim GmbH obtained a new major order in December: it will supply a largescale plant for plastic recycling to Fantastic Plastic. Fantastic Plastic is considered to be the producer of the highest quality PET flakes in Russia. The first production line of the recyclate manufacturer was also supplied by the Meckesheim-based special machinery manufacturer Herbold.

In 2019, Fantastic Plastic's plant in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, went into operation. Since then, together with Herbold Meckesheim and the downstream manufacturers, elaborate trials have been conducted to refine the process. The goal that has now been achieved is that the quality of the granules meets the strict regulations for food packaging and can be used bottle-to-bottle.

The fact that Herbold maintains a technical center at its headquarters in Meckesheim, which can be used for trials of all kinds, was of great benefit here.

Thanks to closely coordinated planning – the project is now starting in January – periods of downtime in main production are largely avoided during the installation of the machines. Fantastic Plastic aims to use the new recycling line to boost its granulate output to 35,000 metric tons per year, a fivefold increase. The Russian company has invested a good 10 million dollars in this project. It is expected to create around 180 new jobs at the site.

View A Video Tour of the Plant

The founders of integra plastics in bulgaria  focus on processing postconsumer film

From the Fall 2019 Edition of
Plastics Recycling Magazine

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More Blades and a Force Feed Mechanism Gives New York
Bottle Recycler a Real Edge

From the Fall 2018 Edition of
Plastics Recycling Magazine

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Fantastic Plastic Chooses Herbold Washing line for new Secondary Polymer processing plant in Nizhny Novgorod RUSSIA

The plant which relies heavily on a Herbold Washing Line will process high-pressure polyethylene (LDPE), low-pressure polyethylene (HDPE) and PET bottles. PETF - flex (transparent and color), LDPE, HDPE and HDPE granulate will be produced from them. 

The plant's capacity is 20 thousand tons of per year. The complex includes: a PET processing line - 1500 kg / h, a LDPE and HDPE processing line - 700 kg / h.

“We plan to reach full capacity in the first quarter of 2020" said Sergey Khalevsky, Director General of Fantastic Plastic Plant.

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After a distinguished career that spanned nearly 30 years at Herbold Meckesheim, Vice President of Sales Siegfried Engel is retiring at the end of June 2018. Since his start in 1989 he has made countless trips to the United States and has visited hundreds of customers in support of Herbold's global sales efforts. "He never hesitated to go above and beyond when it came to supporting me or my team here at Herbold USA" said president David Lefrancois. "Shortly after I arrived at Herbold we began calling him American Siegfried. I will miss him personally and professionally." Lefrancois added.

Although retiring, Mr. Engel has no immediate plans to slow down. In addition to spending more time with his wife Claudia, daughters Franziska and Frederike, and his grandson Nolan, he plans to travel for pleasure and continue working in support of Claudia's business.

The Calm Before the Storm! - The Herbold Booth Minutes Before the Show Opening

NPE 2018 was billed as the largest US Plastics Show ever. If day one is any indication, it's living up to its billing.

The Herbold Booth is filled with equipment and traffic has been non-stop. Interest has been coming from companies here in North America and around the globe. At last count we had spoken to prospects from 11 countries. 

Interest in Size Reduction and Washline products is running about equal which is a great sign for Herbold and the plastics industry as a whole. 

So, if you're at the show or heading there make sure you stop by booth W7545 and say hello. 

Photo: Left to Right: Tim Angell, Herbold USA Southeast Regional Manager, Siegfried Engel, Vice President of Marketing, Herbold Meckeshiem, Eric Shankman, Herbold USA West Regional Manager

The recycling company INVEMA (www.invemagroup.com) commissioned a plant for the recycling of PET bottles in Honduras at the end of 2016 in order to produce bottle-to-bottle quality with FDA approval. In Honduras the collection rate of PET bottles amounts to 84 %. Today, 2000 tons of PET bottles per month are treated with the plant technology from Herbold Meckesheim, nevertheless, bottles have to be imported in order to use the plant to full capacity.

High regeneration quality

In a multi-stage process, the bottles are pre-sorted, size-reduced, washed cold and hot and after drying forwarded to a flake sorting step. After sorting, the PET bottles are size reduced with two Herbold granulators with a capacity of 1800 kg/h

The hot washing line for PET bottle flakes from Herbold Meckesheim guarantees a high regeneration quality at INVEMA. A secondary cleaning of the PO fraction is carried out in a hydrocyclone separation step. The plant was created in a second step for the treatment of the polyolefine fraction from the recycling process, i.e. the caps and labels of the bottles. A second expansion step is in preparation. Its aim is to produce Food Grade PET Pellets, produced from Herbold Washed Flakes.

. For any further information on Herbold washing plants >>

"Local Bottler is enthusiastic..."

After regranulation the end product is sold to a Major Beverage Brand. The owner of INVEMA, George Gatlin, states in an interview: “They are enthusiastic about the quality of the regranulate that we produce...” and how he, an ordinary bottle collector, founded INVEMA with 470 members of staff. INVEMA Story>>

Herbold Meckesheim is your specialist for granulators, shredders, pulverizers, plastcompactors (agglomerators) as well as for complete plants but also for single components for washing, separating and drying of contaminated plastics.

of HV Plastcompactor Densifiers used to agglomerate low bulk density material. The resulting agglomerate has a higher bulk density than the source material with improved flow characteristics.

While traditional gravity feeding is appropriate in some cases, it is not ideal for materials like carpet fiber, film or polystyrene.
The new force feeder mechanism uses an auger to convey material at a higher and more consistent feed rate to deliver increased throughput and reduced energy consumption.

Continuous material processing takes place between a rotating and a fixed compaction disc. Both discs are equipped with screw mounted, replaceable kneading rails. Pre-granulated material moves through the center of the fixed disc into the processing chamber where it is rapidly heated by the two discs.

Three sizes of HV Plastcompactors are available offering throughputs as high as 2,600 – 3,000 lbs. per hour.

Herbold Meckesheim USA, a subsidiary of Herbold Meckesheim Germany, designs, manufactures, and installs size-reduction equipment (shredders, granulators, etc.) and wash-line systems for the plastics industry, specializing in the recycling of industrial and post-consumer plastics.

SMITHFIELD, RI — Herbold USA has announced the availability of a new force fed granulator for size reduction of PET bottles. The Model SMS 100/160-9-2 SB3 features a rotor that is 20% larger than current offerings. The additional size and mass of the rotor allows the granulator to operate at higher throughput rates (up to 7 tons per hour).

Material is fed into the destruction chamber via a screw fed mechanism that utilizes 3 vertically mounted feeding screws. This feeding method offers several advantages over gravity feeding including consistent, even feed rates, reduced power consumption, no material flyback, quieter operation, less wear on the cutting chamber, and reduced fines and dust.

The unique knife geometry which positions inclined rotor and stator knives at the same, but opposing angles provides a true double cross cutting action.

Herbold Meckesheim USA, a subsidiary of Herbold Meckesheim Germany, designs, manufactures, and installs size-reduction equipment (shredders, granulators, etc.) and wash-line systems for the plastics industry, specializing in the recycling of industrial and post-consumer plastics.

SMITHFIELD, RI — For plastic recycling plants, the Herbold Meckesheim Label Remover is more effective than any other machinery for the removal of wraparound polyvinyl chloride (PVC) labels from polyester (PET) bottles.

Until now, removing and separating wraparound labels has been impossible at the prewash stages of bottle recycling and difficult and costly at subsequent stages, but the Label Remover is a game changer. Now, these tightly clinging labels can be removed in a single step, early in the process and without the expense of generating extra steam. The new machine also separates bottles that are stuck together, reducing labor costs for manual separation.

By removing almost all wraparound labels early in the recycling process, the Label Remover also saves money in another way: Down the line at the size-reduction stage, cutting blades will stay sharp longer because they won’t be dulled by many label remnants stuck to bottles.

The Label Remover is available with two different capacities — 4,500 or 8,000 kilograms per hour. Inside each machine, the removal of labels and adhesives from bottles is accomplished through friction between exchangeable rip-off elements bolted to the rotor and exchangeable pins fitted to stator elements. All rip-off elements and pins are made of special wear-resistant steel. The design of the chamber ensures even loads and dwell times as bottles are advanced by the rotor. The chamber has no spaces where bottles might pass through the machine without undergoing full frictional contact, and likewise there are no surfaces to constrict the bottle flow, reducing the possibility of damage to the bottle.

In the fracture-proof, welded-steel housing of the Label Remover are a hinged cover and additional service openings to ensure access when worn parts need replacement. The rotor’s dual self-aligning roller bearings are mounted outside the housing to minimize contamination. Anti-vibration mounting pads are standard.

Herbold Meckesheim USA, a subsidiary of Herbold Meckesheim Germany, designs, manufactures, and installs size-reduction equipment (shredders, granulators, etc.) and wash-line equipment (debalers, separation tanks, friction washers, dryers, compactors, etc.) for the plastics industry, specializing in the recycling of industrial and post-consumer plastics. Components of the company’s systems are designed as modular “building blocks” so that a system can be extended or modified according to the customer’s requirements. As plastics recycling becomes more complicated due to increasing volumes, more contamination, new sorting procedures, automation, newly accepted types of plastic, etc., Herbold anticipates the needs of all plastics recycling facilities, whether they are processing soda bottles or car bumpers.

November 19, 2009

The newly founded Stricker PolyRec Company has recently launched a large-scale plant for size-reducing, agglomerating and refining engineering plastics waste.

Especially such materials that need a particularly inoffensive treatment such as PET, PA and PC films, nonwovens, filaments, fibres and other plastics can be recycled with this plant in an economic way and without any or with only the slightest thermal degradation or IV drop.

The end product is an agglomerate with excellent flow properties and a high bulk density, free from fines by sifting and screening. The granule size of the end product can vary according to the customer’s specification. (Fig. 1)

Stricker PolyRec opted for the plastcompactor concept developed by HERBOLD MECKESHEIM GmbH since it best met the high quality requirements. Due to the short residence time and the special slight sintering process preventing the material from melting, voluminous materials with poor flowing properties can be turned into a 100 % reusable resource.

One example among many is the treatment of PET bottles transformed into clean but badly flowing flat flakes after washing, separation and drying. With the help of the plastcompacting procedure used by Stricker PolyRec, these flakes are not only turned into a material with excellent flow properties, appropriate for a trouble-free gravimetrical dosing for film production lines. In one production step, PET is at the same time completely crystallized.

The heart core of the new plant at Stricker PolyRec is the HERBOLD-Plastcompactor HV 70 with a 250 kW main drive as well as a fully automatic system control in order to guarantee an unchanging quality.

HERBOLD Meckesheim GmbH designed, developed and delivered this turn-key plant. Special emphasis was given to a universal application of the machine and a quick material change due to an easy access for cleaning. (Fig. 2; Fig. 3)

Egbert Schmidt, the managing director of Stricker PolyRec, was quoted as saying:
"HERBOLD MECKESHEIM presented a convincing concept with a good price-performance ratio. In close cooperation with the manufacturer we succeeded in developing the optimal plant configuration, so we are well prepared for forthcoming recycling problems in accordance with market requirements.”

Agglomeration is also a toll service Stricker PolyRec offers to companies wishing to reuse their plastic waste for their own production.

Their staff is highly experienced in the agglomeration of all kinds of plastics. The company started their production with this new plant at Schwerte-Westhofen, near Dortmund, in October.

For more information and a direct link to this story, please click here.