Gneuß: Four PET Recycling Lines for Brazil

Andres Grunewald, Ivanor Luis Arioli and Daniel Gneuss

Gneuss Kunststofftechnik reports the sale of four PET recycling plants to the two Brazilian companies Unnafibras Textil SA (Santo André, SP) and Nova Pack Embalagens Ltda (Bento Goncalves, RS). The decisive argument for a Gneuss solution was the unrestricted FDA approval for the materials produced with this process, says Gneuss.

In Brazil, Unnafibras is considered as the leading company in the sector of PET fibre recycling. They ordered a total of three recycling lines from Gneuss. Two lines were purchased for the production of textile fibres; one was laid out for bottle-to-bottle recycling. At Unnafibras’ headquarters in Santo André, the first two lines are to produce co-extruded polyester fibres from recycled material, with a total capacity of 1,500 kg/h. The third line, which reaches a capacity of 2,000 kg/h, will be operated in Paraiba. Here, pellets are going to be produced from PET bottle flakes, which are to be used by local injection moulding companies for the production of bottle preforms.

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Nova Pack is specialised in the production of thermoforming sheet made of PET, PP and PS. For PET sheet production, they have used in-house or bought-in recycled material for several years now. Now, Nova Pack - who has operated Gneuss Rotary Filtration Systems for approx. 5 years already - has made the decision to buy an extrusion line with the MRS Extruder. "We are for the first time in a position to produce packagings from 100 % recycled material!" This is how Nova Pack’s managing director Ivanor Luis Arioli explained his decision. "We have mainly been convinced by the low costs and the high transparency of the produced film, none of these factors could be realized with traditional systems."

Gneuss MRS extrusion systems consist of the Multi Rotation System Extruder for dehumidification of the recycled material without pre-treatment, a Rotary Filtration System for removal of contaminated particles and an online viscometer for fully-automatic control of melt viscosity. The excellent results, which are well suitable for the food sector and which also convinced the FDA Authority, are realized by the MRS Extruder thanks to its optimum decontamination properties, says Gneuss. These result in turn from the combination of a very large melt surface in the multi-screw section of the extruder, an intensive melt exchange and an optimum devolatilization.

More information: www.gneuss.com

Gneuß Kunststofftechnik GmbH, Bad Oeynhausen, Germany

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