Ettlinger, a German injection moulding machine and filtration systems manufacturer has unveiled its latest melt filtration breakthrough.
With unprecedented filtration fineness of 60 µm, Ettlinger’s ECO melt filters will in the future make it easier to treat recycled material for the film, packaging tape and fibre industry and help plastics recyclers remove challenging contaminants like paints, silicones, barrier materials, cross-linked fractions and gels from the melt.
In particular, the new filter screens will enable cost-efficient conversion of post-consumer PET bottle flake and fines, which generally occur in large amounts, into recycled material with excellent usage properties.
Ettlinger melt filtration
Ettlinger's new ECO 60 µm screen size filters. Source: Ettlinger
Recycled PET from post-consumer bottle flake is highly sought-after in the industry as a raw material for thermoforming packaging, fibres or packaging tapes. Against the background of increased environmental awareness, such products are also widely accepted – and in considerable demand – among consumers.
Depending on the application, the recycled materials often have to meet high requirements in terms of appearance and / or mechanical properties. For instance, even food packaging made entirely from bottle flake is not allowed to contain any contaminants. Additionally, tapes or yarn which are stretched must not exhibit any defects that could cause them to tear and disrupt production.
The purity of the recycled material is central to its usability. Therefore, in the PET world, the efficiency of the melt filtration process is far more critical than usual on the recycled material production line. The screen changers and screens normally employed for this purpose have limitations here, whereas Ettlinger’s self-cleaning ECO filter systems permit compliance with even the toughest specifications.
The core component of the ECO filter is a rotating, cylindrical steel screen with millions of conical holes drilled by laser. When melt flows through this screen from the outside to the inside, any contaminants are retained on the surface and continuously removed by a scraper.
The decisive breakthrough as far as PET recycling is concerned was the recent market launch of a microperforation with an unprecedented filtration fineness of 60 µm.
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