Herbold Meckesheim to exhibit at IFAT 2016

Herbold Meckesheim, headquartered in Meckesheim, Germany, will exhibit at IFAT 2016 30 May to 3 June in Munich. The company manufactures machines and plants for washing, separating and drying plastic scrap.

Among the equipment Herbold Meckesheim will display is its HGM wet shredder, which adds water during the presize reduction step. Until recently, water was only used in the granulation process where further size reduction occurred. Wet granulation leads to less wear and tear, no plastification in light of the optimum cooling during the size reduction process and effective separation from the first processing step, according to the company.

The Herbold wet shredder, equipped with exchangeable wear plates, shreds the infeed material while simultaneously adding wash water. As a result, the coarsest impurities are already washed off during the first process step, the company says.

Above all, this technique is well-suited for highly contaminated material, such as agricultural film. It is also suitable for postconsumer film from households, according to Herbold. Wet granulation also can increase the life between knife changes, enabling more economic operation. Even problematic material, such as wood and paper fractions inside the input material, can be handled better through the wet shredding as water allows for liberation from the material early on in the process, the company says.

Further developments, such as prewashing units, granulators with forced feeding, hot wash steps with ultrafiltration and hydro cyclone separation steps, reduce energy costs and fresh water and energy consumption and increase the quality of the final product, according the Herbold.

The Herbold prewashing unit VWE 600/2 separates foreign bodies, such as stones, metals, glass and sand, using three different integrated process steps.

Herbold Meckesheim recently has retrofitted several film washing lines by introducing a hydro cyclone separation step to replace an existing separation tank. The company says the quality of the washed film flakes has been improved, and customers experience more time between servicing of the melt filtration unit and produce thinner film from regranulate than they used to.

Material from the hydro cyclone separation step is much cleaner and causes fewer problems in subsequent processing and a better price can be realized for the material, according to Herbold.

The company's technicians assist in retrofitting and upgrading existing plants, incorporating their experiences with more than 300 installed wash and separation plants.

In its new technical centre in Meckesheim, near Heidelberg, Germany, the company develops solutions in collaboration with its customers. An initial industrial-scale trial with the customer’s original material is free of charge.

More information is available at www.herbold.com.