Drying and Crystallization of PET for sheet extrusion

The challenge.

Processing of PET material (bottle or sheet flakes) with extremely varying initial moisture levels of up to 13,000 ppm for further processing on twin- or multi-screw extruders with complex vacuum degassing systems.

The goal.

Limiting the hydrolytic degradation of the IV value. Prevent increasing aa levels for materials with food contact. Equal and repeatable Input moisture content of the Flake material. Increasing of the line throughput of about 50 %. Improvement of the product quality.

Our process.

Recycled material (virgin or blend) is recrystallized in a continuous IRD in 10-12 minutes, then uniformly heated to 150 °C and dried to about 1000 ppm. Subsequently further processing on extrusion lines.

Your benefits.

• Continuous material feeding into extruder
• Depending on material type, approximately 20-50 % higher bulk density
• Up to 50 % higher throughput
• significant reduction of vacuum system complexity
• higher equipment availability
• Up to 20 % lower total operating costs compared to conventional systems without IRD
• Throughput rates from 100 kg/h to 2.5 to/h economically feasible