K Special: Engel targets circular economy 

Austrian injection moulding machinery maker Engel will be highlighting its advances in enabling the circular economy, during the K 2019 show in Düsseldorf in October.
 
The “green thread”, said Engel in a 26 June statement, will be running through the machinery maker’s solutions at the world-scale plastic event. 
 
“It is my personal concern to contribute to establishing a circular economy for the plastics industry, which bears a global responsibility that can only be met by companies working together,” said Dr. Stefan Engleder, the Engel Group CEO, ahead of the show.
 
At K 2019, five exhibits at three locations will demonstrate Engel's solutions, focusing on processing recycled material, design for recycling and improving process stability,.
 
“The stability of the injection moulding processes is key to being able to use recycled materials also for higher quality products,” explained Günther Klammer, head of the plasticising systems division and circular economy expert at Engel Austria.
 
As recycled material is subject to greater batch variations than virgin material, Engel employs its intelligent iQ weight control assistance system to reduce the influence of material fluctuation in processing recycled ABS. 
 
According to Engel, its inject 4.0 software ensures a constant melt volume during injection and thus “a consistently high product quality”, even with strongly fluctuating raw material quality. 
 
“Intelligent assistance opens the door for recycled materials to a far broader range of applications,” said Klammer, adding: “Industry 4.0 is an important enabler for the circular economy.”
 
Another approach to use more recycled materials is sandwich components with a core of recycled material embedded in virgin material. 
 
Here, Engel aims to design more products for this type of two-component production, while increasing the proportion of recycled material in the sandwich structures. 
 
Engel will be producing transport boxes at its stand using skinmelt process, which can achieve a high level of recycled content of over 50%.
 
In this process, according to Klammer, grade purity is also very important as the sandwich-moulded products should also be easily recycled at the end of their service life.
 
Engel is exclusively using polypropylene for the manufacture of the transport boxes; the recycled materials originating from post-consumer collection. 
 
For feedstock, Engel collaborates with Der Grüne Punkt (The green dot), Duales System Deutschland (DSD, Germany).
 
Another area of focus for Engel will be design for recycling. 
 
Engel will be presenting its organomelt process, wherein fibre-reinforced prepregs with a thermoplastic matrix such as organic sheets and tapes are overmoulded with a thermoplastic from the matrix material's material group. 
 
“The entire composite component consists only of thermoplastic and glass fibres and has the potential to be recycled at the end of its useful life,” Engel said. 
 
Engel will be demonstrating the production-ready process with a demanding automotive application.
 
In the outdoor exhibition area between Halls 10 and 16, an Engel victory injection moulding machine will be converting post-consumer waste into miniature waste containers.
 
Austrian recycling machinery supplier Erema, will also be using another victory machine nearby to produce card boxes from recycled fishing nets. 
 
The polyamide recycled material comes from Chile, where three American machine manufacturers have set up collection points for end-of-life nets. 
 
In Chile, the nets, which were often disposed of in the sea due to the lack of available collection infrastructure, are recycled on an Erema system and processed into skateboards and sun glasses on Engel machinery. 
 
“With our experience from Europe, we can contribute to people taking the first steps towards circular economy in other regions of the world, such as South America or Asia. The closer enterprises cooperate along the value chain, the better this works,” concluded Engleder. 
 
Engel will be exhibiting at hall 15, stand C58, at K 2019, 16-23 October, in Düsseldorf, Germany.