Report on the OPEN HOUSE: from PET bottle flakes to a thermoformed end product

As announced in our last newsletter, from 25^th to 27^th March was held a joint Open House between the German company Gneuss MRS, Extrusion System, our company WM Wrapping Machinery SA at BG Plast facility in Marnate, Italy.

During these three days demonstration, the whole process chain from the dosing of PET bottle flakes, via the extrusion and filtration of plastic melts, as well as the subsequent sheet production, through to the thermoforming of food packaging has been shown to visitors.

On the production line installed in BG Plast’s headquarter, the washed PET bottle flakes fed without pre-drying and crystallization directly through a gravimetric 3-component dosing system (Woywod) and a metal separator to the Gneuss Multi Extrusion System. The untreated polyester, intensively decontaminated, was then vented and processed with a throughput rate of 500 kg/h with the special rotation extruder MRS 110, which makes use of a simple water-ring vacuum system, and has been filtered with the fully-automatic Gneuss Filtration System Type RSFgenius 90 without any pressure and/or process disturbances.

The melt has been then led to BG Plast’s downstream sheet line with polishing stack, coating system, sheet accumulator and winder.

The semi-finished sheet product was then led to our thermoforming machine model FC 780 E Speedmaster Plus and thermoformed to disposable transparent plates.

The visitors verified the high transparency as well as the good surface properties of the food-grade material directly on site.

The project manager from Gneuss, Dr. Carl-Jürgen Wefelmeier, pointed out: “It is absolutely no problem to combine our MRS Extrusion System as well as our filtration systems with components from other manufacturers. Also existing lines can be easily retrofitted, so that pre-drying and crystallization will become redundant and an approval for use with food products, even if processing recycled material, can be obtained”.

Dr. Ing. Luca Oliverio, Area Sales Manager and responsible from WM for the participation at the event, asserted: “The PET sheet coming from extruder was perfectly processable from our thermoforming machine at a speed of 46 cycles per minute and the trays obtained were very good quality. An interesting experience to be repeated in the future”.

The Open House’s visitors received all the documentation and the necessary explanations during the demonstration.

It has been a positive in house show and an extraordinary proof of joining forces to achieve a great goal.