Starlinger Unveils New PET Recycling Line
The recoSTAR PET Art line, unveiled at K Show 2022, offers advances in efficiency and uptime.
Starlinger unveiled its newest recycling line, the recoSTAR PET art, at the K Show in Dusseldorf. The line puts together advances in efficiency, automation, and uptime in a complete flake-to-pellet PET bottle recycling line.
The recoSTAR PET art recycling line from Starlinger.
Photo Credit: Starlinger
The PET Art features a new combined dryer unit that replaces the separate drying stages of the previous recoSTAR. The extruder is also a new design, with a length/diameter ratio of 24, down from 40. The increased capacity in the solid state polycondensation reactor ensures thorough decontamination and cleansing, eliminating the need for a specific degassing station. A melt pump was added between the extruder and pelletizer. After crystallization and solid-state polycondensation, material moves through an energy recovery station that harnesses the heat of the warm pellets.
The changes result in a 25% reduction in energy use relative to the previous model, while increasing capacity from 1.8 to 2.1 ton/hr. Starlinger also reported that the machine requires 46% less maintenance time thanks in part to its dry vacuum pumps and open-loop desiccant air flow. Continuous automatic monitoring of process parameters has been implemented to ensure product quality, especially important for producing food-safe material.
Starlinger expects the energy savings, along with improved uptime and ease of operation, will reduce its customers’ overall production costs by 21%.
Starlinger displayed both the extruder and combined drying unit at K Show, and demonstrated a full recoSTAR PET art line at its factory in Schwerin after the show.
Related Content
-
K 2022 Additives & Materials: Sustainability in the Lead
Nearly all of the new additives highlighted at the big show are aimed at enhancing recyclability of commodity resins and some volume engineering resins such as nylon and PC. A few new materials, on which we had not previously reported, also surfaced at K 2022.
-
Green’s the Theme in Extrusion/Compounding
The drive toward circular economy is requiring processors to make more use of PCR. Machine builders at K—across all extrusion processes—will be highlighting innovations to help them do just that.
-
Recycling Challenges Become Opportunities with the Aid of New Technologies
The latest recycling equipment on view at the K Show handles more materials, is more efficient and produces higher quality output than ever achieved before.