Gneuss, a family-owned company based in Bad Oeynhausen, Germany, submitted its new MRSjump extruder for this year's Plastics Recycling Awards competition in the category of Recycling Machinery Innovation. Based on the operating principle of the Gneuss MRS technology, the new extruder has been designed with a much-expanded devolatilising capacity, making it well suited for post-consumer PET recycling. Next to providing an excellent decontamination performance, the MRSjump extruder also maintains or can even improve the intrinsic viscosity of the material without the need for any heat treatment of the material, either before or after extrusion. The extruder even allows for the processing of post-consumer PET regrind from thermoformed trays directly to sheet for thermoforming trays in one step.
The extruder also offers advantages for post-consumer polymer recycling generally, especially for recycling polymers such as polyolefins and PS for food contact applications where decontamination of the polymer is important. The high devolatilising performance of the MRSjump extruder means that it achieves the challenge test requirements of the FDA, EFSA and many other local regulators worldwide. As in the case of PET, the decontamination performance of the extruder makes additional, energy-intensive heat treatment of the material unnecessary.
This was achieved by enlarging the MRS multiple screw design. The longer, modified version of the Multi Rotation Section ensures both a longer residence time of the material and surface area exchange under vacuum, while at the same time, reducing shear. As the thermal and mechanical stress on the polymer melt is minimised, PET processed on the MRSjump extruder has excellent optical and mechanical properties.
Moreover, the MRSjump extruder requires little space, is low maintenance and extremely energy efficient.
The winning entries in all categories will be announced next week at the PRSE in Amsterdam on Thursday, 23 June.