Kobusch UK, a member of Sun Capital Partners, Inc., is all set to conclude its planned expansion in the field of rPET early in 2013 with the installation of a new inline sheet facility at Stanley. The company continues to count on its high-quality partners EREMA and SML who are responsible for continuity, experience and reliability. This new system will enable Kobusch UK to produce 100% food-contact compliant rPET flat sheet.
Tony Mitchell, Kobusch UK Sales Director explains: "With this £3 million investment Sun Capital has demonstrated its support for our plans for growth. We intend to keep the existing extrusion division in Stanley in operation for our expansion plans. The new EREMA system with SML downstream equipment will enable us to continue to increase the amount of post consumer waste in our rPET production without sacrificing any quality in clarity in the thermoforming process."
rPET technology from EREMA
Kobusch UK is represented in three locations in Great Britain. The company has already been running a VACUREMA® inline sheet system in Livingston since 2007, with the sophisticated and particularly economical technology for direct, single stage processing coming from EREMA and SML. A VACUREMA® BASIC 1514 T with a directly connected downstream flat sheet system from SML process post-consumer PET bottle flakes and Kobusch's own production waste to produce food-contact approved rPET sheet for the production of thermoformed PET trays at significant throughputs. To follow on from this success the decision was taken to order a new, larger system from EREMA and SML. This system will go into operation in the first half of 2013 and, together with the VACUREMA® BASIC 2016 T, will then enable throughputs of up to 1,400 kg/h.
Key benefits of the direct processing of PET bottle flakes to make rPET flat sheet
The amount of sheet containing recycled materials has grown continuously in recent years in the interest of both cost-effectiveness and sustainability. Using VACUREMA® technology, food-contact compliant rPET monolayer sheet can be produced through efficient decontamination. In the case of conventional ABA multilayer sheet, however, rPET – which does not undergo any decontamination process – is used for the middle layer (B) and thus virgin PET material has to be used for the cover layer (A).
"Thanks to the efficient decontamination of the flakes, Kobusch UK is even able to use the VACUREMA® to produce food-contact grade sheet purely from rPET," says Manfred Hackl, joint CEO at EREMA, outlining a further benefit of the system.
Another unique benefit is the increased value added as a result of the direct production of the flat sheet without the intermediate stage of pelletising.
Key benefits of VACUREMA® inline technology from EREMA
EREMA Engineering Recycling Maschinen und Anlagen GmbH is regarded as the global market and innovation leader in the development and production of plastic recycling systems and technologies for the plastics processing industry. EREMA's technology has become established as a leading global standard for a wide variety of recycling applications. The portfolio ranges from the inhouse recycling of a wide variety of production waste, the recycling of strongly contaminated post-consumer wastes and PET recycling systems for direct food contact to recycling systems for numerous custom applications as found in the automotive, compounding, bioplastics and wood-plastic composite fields.
Since it was launched in 1998 VACUREMA® has become the most used technology around the world in what is known as the bottle-to-bottle recycling of post-consumer PET bottle flakes. Numerous country-specific approval certificates and also the internationally recognised certification by the North American FDA document the suitability of the rPET produced in this way for direct food contact. EREMA offers VACUREMA® technology in three different system configurations – VACUREMA® Basic, Advanced and Prime – according to the field of application and the requirements placed on the end product.
Besides this, with the production of rPET sheet, VACUREMA® offers an additional, cost-efficient and profitable business opportunity. Here EREMA combines a VACUREMA® Basic with a direct downstream thermoforming sheet system to make a complete inline sheet solution.
One particular benefit of VACUREMA® inline technology is that it is highly flexible in terms of the bulk density, shape and mixture of the feed material – PET secondary raw materials such as bottle flakes, ground amorphous skeleton waste, virgin material, edge trim and mixtures of them with virgin material are recycled directly to make end products such as FDA certified and ILSI compliant thermoforming sheet and even fibres and strapping.
Further benefits include the capability of handling high input moisture (up to around 1.5%) and varying moisture in the input material together with stable IV values and minimum IV loss when processing the PET melt.
Economic benefits include the compact and space-saving design of the VACUREMA® plus ecoSAVE®, which reduces not only energy consumption by up to 10% (at around 0.25-0.28 kWh/kg) but also production costs and CO2 emissions at the same time. There are currently more than 140 VACUREMA® systems in operation around the world and 39 of them are already inline sheet solutions with an annual production capacity of 217,000 tonnes. A total of four VACUREMA® inline sheet systems went into operation in the last six months alone.
Key benefits of the downstream equipment from SML
Kobusch UK has again selected the Austrian company SML as supplier for the downstream equipment of this new line, with this installation already being the third line delivered since 2007.
SML Maschinen GmbH is based in Lenzing/Austria and internationally recognised as a reliable turnkey supplier of custom-made coex-castfilm-lines, coex-calendering-lines, extrusion-coating-lines and multifilament-spinning-lines. With its strong engineering force, SML has established itself as a worldwide technology and market leader in various fields. Besides supplying custom-made extrusion lines SML offers holistic and reliable concepts to support customers in the realisation of complex products.
While key benefits such as equipment reliability and precise production performance are again ensured, SML's new roll stack also incorporates one of the highest production performances of the industry to date. New roller design with increased cooling capability will allow an output of over 15 kg per hour and cm line width, which is achieved at production speeds of up to 100 m/min.
Together with the known benefits of the Smart Parallel Gap Design and the ultra-hard thin-wall rollers (roller diameters 370/700/700 mm), this line will allow Kobusch to significantly expand their markets with high-quality sheet products.
