Environmental concerns
Protecting the environment has become increasingly important in modern times.
The challenges we’re currently facing concern:
- Climate change or global warming
- Depletion of natural resources
- Dispersion of polluting materials into the environment
Global Warming
Plastic has low environmental impact. Transforming plastic into a finished product has less of an impact on the environment compared to glass or aluminum because it has relatively low melting point and weight.
Furthermore, its use in packaging and vehicles helps reduce their environmental impact.
Depletion of natural resources
Plastic contributes to preserve scarce resources such as forests, drinking water and food. It can be made from processing waste material, be it virgin or recycled. On the other hand, other types of packaging, such as paper or glass, may contribute to deforestation or energy consumption. Furthermore, the use of plastic packaging contributes to maximize the food conservation.
Dispersion of polluting materials into the environment
Polluting substances dispersed into the soil, sea and atmosphere include plastic, especially single-use. It can take hundreds of years to break down. Most of polymers can be recycled to create new products, thus minimizing environmental pollution.
It’s important to implement an awareness-raising policy with regard to the use of plastics, so that waste materials may also be considered a resource. Recycling is a key prerequisite for a circular economy.
What are the different types of plastic?
Plastic is a fundamental component of many items we use every day, including bottles, packaging, components for office, school, automotive parts and much more. Plastics is a unique word to identify an industry divided in multiple materials and by knowing the difference, as well as the SPI (Society of the Plastics Industry) codes, will help you to classify the different types of plastic and make more informed decisions about recycling.
The seven types of plastic include: Polyethylene Terephthalate (PETE or PET), High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE), Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC), Low-Density Polyethylene (LDPE), Polypropylene (PP), Polystyrene or Styrofoam (PS) and Miscellaneous plastics (including: polycarbonate, polylactide, acrylic, acrylonitrile butadiene, styrene, fiberglass, and nylon).
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Polyethylene Terephthalate
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High-Density Polyethylene
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Polyvinyl Chloride
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Low-Density Polyethylene
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Polypropylene (PP)Disposable cups, take away and yogurt containers, furniture, baby milk bottles, reusable bottles
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Polystyrene
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All other
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Acrylonitrile
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Polyamide
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Is it really possible a world without plastic?
Without plastic our life would change drastically. Plastic is crucial in many industry sectors such as medical, packaging and automotive. Let's imagine for example to all components and devices used by the medical industry to serve patients or the packaging used for food distribution that need to be thick and robust to and able to withstand sterilisation temperature.
A life without plastic is no more possible. What people can do is properly recycling it.
From #plasticfree to #replastic.
Working with recycled plastic
Dealing with recycled plastic is very different from the standard process for virgin raw material.
The final producers must adapt their plants for transforming a material neither standardized nor consistent among batches like the virgin grains because of its unknown history. As consequence, chemical-physical characteristics may have wide variations and contaminants (NIAS) or low-boiling oils (VOC) may be present.
A makeshift use of post-consumed material like rPET or flakes may drive to:
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CAPEX |
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Dryer lifespan reduction up to 50% Additional maintenance costs |
| Process instability | |
Quality reduction Scrap increases |
| Potential contaminants in final product |
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Potential risk of heath for consumers Unquantifiable reputation damage |
Therefore, using recycled plastic materials it is fundamental to ensure safe and traceable processes, reduction and control of contaminants and process stabilization to ensure high efficiency and quality.
Piovan Group Contribution
Referring to new plants installed in 2019, one PET bottle every two worldwide has been produced with lines provided by Piovan Group.
This, and the great expertise in extrusion process as well, makes Piovan Group the right partner for designing, building, start-up and service recycled plastic production lines.
Solutions for producing with recycled plastic
GenesysNext represents the state of the art in drying systems for the PET preforms manufacturing, creating a new standard. The cost for good preform produced is now reduced to a minimum level considering the main advantages: minimum waste of material due to scrap, lowest energy consumption and minimum labour cost, since the system is fully automatic. GenesysNext is designed to work natively with Pure-Tech filters.
AIPC stands for Automatic Injection Pressure Control. It is an innovative real-time control to stabilize the injection pressure ensuring the quality of the final product, acting on the main drying parameters. This feature is crucial when using recycled material that may vary its chemical-physical characteristic quite frequently due to its heterogeneous origin.
PureTech filtration system allows reduction of the VOCs that can be present in the process air. This is especially required in the case of recycled materials that can release substances during the heating or injection process. Pure-Tech filters deduce consistently the amount NIAS in the process air and maximize the life span of the production line.
Inspecta detects NIAS in PET preforms, available in two versions: for acetaldehyde or benzene. Suitable for very fast response measurements in production by line operator Inspecta is the best solution for prompt reaction and worldwide measurements comparability for multi-sites quality processes.
CDF condensing unit ensures the decontamination of process air, preserving the performances and lifespan of the drying system. It provides an additional filtering step and make possible the condensing of low boling contaminant substances.
Moisture Minder continuously monitors the residual humidity content trend allowing prompt corrective actions in case of need. The analysis is automatically performed by Moisture Minder without need of specialized personnel. Humidity tracking is crucial especially with recycled material that may be stored in non-controlled ambient conditions.
Crystallisers restore the crystalline status of amorphous recycled material making possible a safe drying phase. The models have been specifically developed to guarantee homogeneous crystallization in a smooth process even with complex materials without any dust generation.
MDW gravimetric blenders are available in various configurations and can dose and weigh up to 8 granular materials, allowing to select the most appropriate hopper capacities and dosing devices. The blenders can be combined with injection and blow moulding machines, and extruders, covering productions from 30 up to a maximum of 1800 kg/h.
Winfactory 4.0 is the production process control and management software developed by Piovan, designed to supervise the digital factory able to interact with ERPs. The new product combines the typical supervision functions with a wide array of new ones including the module to track the process over time for quality proof.
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Products to working recycled plastic
F series vacuum pumps
The F vacuum units, with a power ranging from 1.5 up to 11 kW, cover a production range of up to 1500 kg/h and a transport distance of 100 m maximum.
Vacuum receivers for flakes
Vacuum receivers for flakes are designed to run critical materials without any issue related to dust, to bridging and irregular material flow, to light or irregular regrind. The geometry of the body, the design of the flap, the choice of the sensors, the configuration of the filter and of every details have been designed thanks to an experience gained in thousands of installations.
The new generation dryer for rPET
GenesysNext is the high performance, fully automatic, single-hopper drying system that optimises the production process of PET preforms. It has been specifically designed to reach advanced optimisation of energy consumption thanks to a new configuration of the regeneration circuit and a new heating power recovery system.
Automatic Injection Pressure Control
It is a very innovative control of the residual moisture in the PET, by means of which any Piovan drying system of the GP series can be connected to the preform injection moulding machine. AIPC has the capability of reading the injection pressure in real time and of stabilizing it to the desired value.
CDF condensing unit
CDF condensing unit ensures the decontamination of process air, preserving the performances and lifespan of the drying system. It provides an additional filtering step and make possible the condensing of low boling contaminant substances.
Reliability, dependability and efficiency of crystallisation
Piovan provides a complete range of crystallisers, to carry out the material preparation process before the injection moulding phase or extrusion. The models ranging from the CR 150 to the CR 4000 have been specifically developed to overcome the material glass transition temperature and to guarantee homogeneous crystallization, with no risk of sticking or formation of bridges.
Energy efficient crystallizer
The XTLR Series Crystallizer hopper dryer offers superior crystallization of many amorphous resins. Standard design features enhance performance throughout the process to increase performance in the critical glass transition zone and a pellet separation system for even, unobstructed flow to the take away area.
High dosing precision and repeatability
MDW gravimetric blenders are available in various configurations and can dose and weigh up to 8 granular materials, allowing to select the most appropriate hopper capacities and dosing devices. The blenders can be combined with injection and blow moulding machines, and extruders, covering productions from 30 up to a maximum of 1800 kg/h.
Gravimetric dosing system
Our GDS 7 series are applied, when continuous dosing with the highest accuracy is required. Basically the unit is located above the extruder inlet and fed by vacuum receivers. High quality load cells measure the loss in weight of the single components and the servo drives regulate the throughput of the auxiliary components.
Large size granulators
G40 series of granulators is suitable for injection & blow moulding, extrusion and general purpose applications. It is available as two basic models with tilting hopper manually operated for easier cleaning and maintenance and cutting chamber with side plates wear resistant.
Dust separation systems
The KD dust separator is designed to separate and remove dust from the re-ground material. The working of the system is automatic and independent or it may be interfaced with a grinder granulator.
Medium/Large granulators
The N series of granulators is suitable for injection & blow moulding, extrusion and general purpose applications.
Single shaft shredders
Shredders in four standard models for shredding processing wastes from the injection moulding, blow moulding and extrusion industry. The newly patented system for fixing the rotary blades with inclined cutting, allows recycling of large components providing high production outputs with limited energy consumption.
The supervision software for the digital factory
Winfactory 4.0 is the production process control and management software developed by Piovan, designed to supervise the digital factory able to interact with ERPs. The new product combines the typical supervision functions with a wide array of new ones including the module to track the process over time for quality proof.
Advanced Control and Monitoring System
FACS 4.0 is Una-Dyn’s latest development of a state-of-the-art and distinctive auxiliary equipment control and monitoring system. This unique distributed control system has both power and data transmitted throughout the plant using only a two-wire twisted pair wire. A simple power and data distribution network requiring no conduit or extensive or expensive wiring.
Solution for on-line moisture measurement
Moisture Minder continuously monitors the residual humidity content trend allowing prompt corrective actions in case of need. The analysis is automatically performed by Moisture Minder without need of specialized personnel. Humidity tracking is crucial especially with recycled material that may be stored in non-controlled ambient conditions.
Inspecta for utmost preform quality
Inspecta detects NIAS in PET preforms, available in two versions: for acetaldehyde or benzene. Suitable for very fast response measurements in production by line operator Inspecta is the best solution for prompt reaction and worldwide measurements comparability for multi-sites quality processes.