Closing the loop - helped by advanced deodorisation technology

Agricultural films can be challenging, as organic residues can still be present even after washing, allowing gases to develop in the subsequent recycling process, while detergent bottles often retain the penetrating odour of their contents.  Paul Niedl, Commercial Head of Starlinger recycling technology.

“Our odour reduction technology is designed to permanently remove such odours so that the produced regranulate is suitable for high-level applications,” said Paul Niedl, Commercial Head of Starlinger recycling technology.

The entire recycling process can be adjusted according to the contamination and odour intensity of the input material and the desired specifications of the produced regranulate. This means a wide range of input materials can be accommodated.

The input material is first cut and homogenised in the SMART feeder. The material is heated in the feeder until it reaches the ideal operating point. During this first step, highly volatile odours are extracted. After the main extruder the melt passes through continuous melt filters. Here, solid contaminants are removed, preventing them from releasing odours during the following process steps. Then, in the C-VAC module the melt surface is increased by 300 %, achieving an extremely high degassing efficiency. This ensures that even deeply embedded odours are permanently extracted. In the final step, the regranulated pellets are treated in the pellet conditioning unit (PCU) at the end of the recycling process to eliminate even the most persistent of odours. The resulting regranulate can be used for manufacturing a wide range of plastic products.