Plastics News - Show Daily - October 17, 2024 - 12

FAKUMA 2024
12 * Plastics News, October 17, 2024
Erema launches its biggest
polyolefi n recycling machine
By Beatriz Santos
Sustainable Plastics
Much like 2023, 2024 has been
a challenging year for European
plastics recyclers.
Demand continues to be low,
imports and virgin material beat
recyclate on price, and interest
rates are only starting to ease.
Recyclers from Germany to the
Netherlands have entered insolvency
or gone bankrupt.
Erema Engineering Recycling
Maschinen und Anlagen GmbH
- the world's leading plastics recycling
machinery manufacturer
- is responding by launching its
biggest polyolefi n recycling system
at Fakuma.
Why? Because a consolidated
market needs bigger machines,
Managing Director Robin Roth
told Sustainable Plastics, a sister
publication of Plastics News.
" I think there will be a consolidation
in the market. Someone
who is selling virgin material
today has the market excess. If
tomorrow someone asks him to
quote for 30 percent of the material
in post-consumer, then of
course he would like to be able to
sell the material himself. I think
the big suppliers of virgin material
are preparing to also become
the suppliers for regrind material.
" So yes, there will be market
consolidation. Companies
will
be acquired or merged, and bigger
groups will be created. And
bigger groups will require bigger
machines. Erema will be the supplier
of these bigger machines, "
Roth said.
The Intarema 2325
At Fakuma, Erema is introducing
a whole new dimension to the
polyolefi n recycling market. The
Intarema 2325 is the largest size
of the well-known Intarema system
to date.
The new model has a preconditioning
unit diameter of 2.30 meters
and an extruder screw with a
diameter of 250 millimeters, reaching
a throughput of over 4 tonnes
per hour for polyolefi n regrind.
" New legislation and the voluntary
commitment of major product
brands mean that, in the future,
our customers will need to
process an increasing volume of
plastic waste to make high-quality
recycled pellets without any
compromises, " said Markus Huber-Lindinger,
managing director
at Erema. " The Intarema 2325 is
our answer to this need. "
The legislation in question is the
Packaging and Packaging Waste
Regulation (PPWR), which Roth
said should have come " two, three
years earlier and with less transition
periods " since it will " defi nitely
give a boost to the industry. "
" We are happy about this political
push, but it takes time. ...
We are doing our homework now
that we have a little more time and
do not have the stress of the last
years. We are preparing for the
next boom - it will come, " Roth
predicted, without predicting exEREMA
ENGINEERING
RECYCLING MASCHINEN
UND ANLAGEN GMBH
A6-6314
actly when. When it does, the new
Intarema 2325 will be ready to process
large volumes of recyclate.
The largest laser
fi lter system
The machine incorporates the
largest laser fi lter system Erema
has ever built. The 2/406 Quattro
Laser Filter has a total fi lter area
of 7,800 square centimeters and
contributes to the high stability
of the system thanks to its robust
design and precision fi ltration.
After the extrusion phase, the
contaminated plastic melt fl ows
via a circular distributor ring into
the housing between two parallel
confi gured laser-drilled screen
discs. The melt is then pressed
through the screen discs, fl ows
through and leaves the fi lter in
a clean state via the collection
channel. The contaminant particles
collect on the screen as the
melt fl ows through. A scraper
disc with three scrapers on each
side rotates between the screen
discs. The pressed-on scrapers
lift the contaminants from the
smooth, hardened screen discs
and forward them directly to the
discharge system.
Many of the specially built
large-scale components were
installed and matched together
for the fi rst time for the Intarema
2325, including 690 Volt motors.
The control panel array is also
new - at 12 meters long, the
electrical container is imposing,
but it is compact relative to the
size of the machine. Erema assures
that the well-arranged confi
guration makes prior installation,
transport and maintenance
work straightforward.
Counter Current
technology
Like all Intarema machines, the
2325 model is also equipped with
Erema's Counter Current technology.
It moves the plastic material
through the preconditioning unit
in the opposite direction to the
extruder screw, ensuring a consistently
high output over a wide
temperature range.
The key principle of the TVEplus
Counter Current system lies
in melt fi ltration upstream of extruder
degassing. This makes it
possible to produce recycled pellets
of high quality, meaning that
the proportion of recycled plastics
used in the fi nal product can
be signifi cantly higher than with
lower-quality recycled pellets.
" Our extensive trials with
around 500 tonnes of material
have shown that the Intarema
2325 impresses with high-quality
" We are preparing for the
next boom - it will come, "
Erema Managing Director
Robin Roth predicted, without
predicting exactly when.
Plastics News photo by Caroline Seidel
recycled pellets at high throughput
rates, all within a very stable
process, " said Sophie Pachner,
R&D manager for process engineering
at Erema.
The Intarema 2325 is available
immediately and can be
purchased through Erema's fasttrack
scheme. Sales resulting
from Fakuma might give a boost
to the company's books.
Sales growth fl at
During last year's Fakuma, Erema
talked of percentage sales
drops in the double digits in comparison
with the 2021-22 fi nancial
year. This year, Roth expects
the company to end up close to
2022-23 levels and see single-digit
growth in revenue.
" Everybody knows that we are
not in a booming economy. We
are used to big growth, but we
will not have that. We are seeing
more of a sideways movement,
maybe even a little downwards, "
Roth noted.
The Erema Group manufactured
290 extruders for recycling
during the company's 2023-24
fi nancial year, generating a total
of €380 million ($413 million) in
sales. That compares to €355 million
($386 million) in sales in the
2022-23 fi nancial year and production
of 350 extruders.
" Our customers, especially in
Europe, are still suffering from
virgin material imports at lower
prices. So it's still a hard time
for our customers. And when
our customers are having a hard
time, of course we try to align
with them and make the best out
of the situation, " Roth said.
India, China, US pick
up the slack
While business in Europe has
declined, sales from India, China
and the United States have
helped balance things out somewhat,
Roth said. Erema sees a
very strong market in India, as
the country continues to roll out
plastics recycling legislation.
" India is booming because they
also have a legislation that's supporting
the recycling industry,
different to many Southeast Asian
markets. India is taking it very seriously,
also with big consulting
money that they spent on developing
their economy to be circular.
They don't want to make the
mistakes that were made in many
Southeast Asian countries; India
is prepared, " Roth added.
Even though China's economy
has slowed down this year, Erema
is still getting good orders from
the Asian country, with individual
clients putting in orders for many
machines, Roth said.
No plan to move
production abroad
The many woes facing the European
market have led German
and Austrian machine manufacturers
like Arburg and Wittmann
to move production or assembly
abroad. No such plans are on the
cards for Erema, Roth confi rmed.
" I wouldn't say never, but there
is no plan. Our core focus is not
to produce very cheap machines.
Our focus is being a partner to our
customer. Yes, we are a machine
manufacturer, but we don't put this
at the core. We are a competence
center. We do production support
and everything that comes along
with production - documentation,
supporting customers in fulfi
lling the necessary measures to
supply a good product. We supply
investment goods for the next 2030
years. Materials will change,
governmental rules will change,
the market will change, but we remain
a constant to our customers
throughout that time.
" There is more to partnership
than just supplying a machine.
That's how we differentiate ourselves
from Asian and other
competitors. Yes, the capital expenditure
at the moment might
be a little higher, but it is a partnership
for the next 20-30 years, "
Roth said.
While Erema has no plans to
move production outside of Europe,
it does want to decentralize
its service support by offering
customers qualifi ed service technicians
in their time zone and
preferably in their own language.
This change in strategy, Roth
explained, was not only triggered
by learnings from the COVID-19
pandemic but also from the fact
that it is increasingly diffi cult to
fi nd technicians who are willing
to spend substantial amounts of
time traveling.
Erema has adapted to these
conditions by developing an online
customer support
tool
to
quickly connect customers with
the appropriate technician and
an in-house training program for
employees.
" We frequently bring together
service technicians from different
continents so that they can
also learn from each other. We
have two to three weeks for training
with a lot of interaction. With
over 8,000 machines supplied
across the world, we needed to
create this international service
network, " Roth said.
Chemical,
textile recycling
Erema's mission is to support
its customers with a broad range
of product offerings. From bottle-to-bottle
to post-industrial
recycling, from polyolefi ns to textile
and chemical recycling - the
" new kids on the block, " Roth said.
Fakuma visitors will also be able
to explore Erema's developments
for these two applications. The
Chemarema portfolio, for example,
offers custom-built solutions
for the wide variety of inputs to
chemical recycling. The extrusion
systems are designed to meet
the requirements of each input
stream - incorporating a high degree
of fl exibility to allow for any
variances that occur in the material
being fed into the system.
Systems range from single-screw
melt extruders with preconditioning
unit, shredder-extruder combinations
and
vacuum-assisted
extrusion solutions, through to
cascade solutions with single- or
twin-screw extrusion.
Roth said Erema is talking with
" all the players " in the textile and
chemical recycling markets in
preparation for future growth in
demand.
" The core of our business is still,
of course, the post-consumer bottle-to-bottle
and the post-industrial
markets. Textile and chemical
recycling are niche, but like we pioneered
bottle-to-bottle recycling,
we will do the same with fi ber.
With chemical recycling, everyone's
talking about it, but nothing
or very little is happening. Of this
little that is happening, our technology
and our extruders are there
to prepare the material. "
With Erema, customers can rest
assured they will not miss out on
any current or future trends in
plastics recycling, Roth said.
Plastics News - Show Daily - October 17, 2024

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