Krones: PET recycling material certified as food-grade

Krones recycling pilot plant now up and running

For some months now, Krones AG (www.Krones.com) has been offering a compact-size PET-bottle-to-bottle recycling facility for bottlers and converters, designed to produce food-grade PET from used PET material. The prestigious Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging (www.ivv.fraunhofer.de) has now confirmed that the recyclate is suitable for direct contact with foods and beverages. The recyclate examined in what is called the challenge test complied with the specifications of the American FDA (Food & Drug Administration) in regard to aqueous, acidic and fatty products, for both cold and hot filling processes. The material also conforms to the German BfR guidelines (Federal Institute for Risk Assessment). The study confirms that Krones’ bottle-to-bottle recycling system supplies food-grade recyclate.

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The Fraunhofer Institute assessed only the bottle-to-bottle module; the upstream washing module was ignored, although it would have improved the result still further. Thus users also have an option for running only the bottle-to-bottle module from Krones to handle pre-washed bottles from elsewhere, and produce food-grade recyclate. Krones is the only manufacturer able to offer the entire recycling process, both with the washing module and with the B2B module, as Krones announced.

New pilot plant
The compact-size concept for the PET recycling system has been dimensioned for outputs of 500 kg/h or 1,000 kg/h of recyclate. At its plant in Flensburg, Krones has now opened a pilot plant on a scale of 1 to 10, in which the entire process has been imaged. This pilot plant serves firstly for component development, and further optimisation of the process, and secondly for providing clients with an option for having their own material examined, after which the process is fine-tuned for the particular application concerned. With this pilot plant, Krones is offering an exemplary supplement to its service capabilities centred around PET recycling.

Picture: Krones’ bottle-to-bottle recycling system as a model

KRONES AG, Neutraubling/Germany

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