Intarema- A core technology for a new dimension in plastic recycling

EREMA is to launch a plant system with new core technology and other additional innovations at K 2013 in Düsseldorf: INTAREMA®. The groundbreaking new feature can be seen in its name which comes from INverse + TAngential + eREMA® and is based on the newly developed and globally patented Counter Current technology from EREMA. The result of this innovation: INTAREMA® brings together in an unparalleled way top productivity, flexibility and extremely easy operation with considerably lower energy consumption. The central core technology of the new INTAREMA® system is the patented Counter Current system which shows its impact in the border area of the cutter/compactor and tangentially connected extruder. Inside the cutter/compactor the rotation of the rotor disc which is equipped with tools forms a rotating spout so that the material is circulating the whole time. In the Counter Current system this material spout – unlike the previous technical standard – moves against the direction of the extruder. As a result, the relative speed of the material in the intake zone, i.e. when passing from the cutter/compactor to the extruder, increases to such an extent that the extruder screw acts in the same way as a sharp cutting edge which now cuts the plastic. The result of this inverse tangential configuration of the new INTAREMA® plants: the extruder handles more material in a shorter time and is much more independent in terms of the pre-compacting level of the material. To date the worldwide technical standard has been a system in which the material in the cutter/compactor moved in the direction of the extruder. The centrifugal forces arising in the process were used for the feeding of the extruder and the treated, warm material was thus "packed" into the extruder screw. The inverse tangential configuration of the Counter Current system, on the other hand, now ensures that the extruder screw is filled virtually pressure-free with the preheated material. Michael Heitzinger, CTO at EREMA, describes the positive impact which the new system has on productivity and the quality of the recyclate as follows: "The screw basically "takes what it needs", the extruder always has the ideal filling level and is never overfilled, which makes it much better to regulate. Inside the cutter/compactor the feed material is buffered and preconditioned optimally for the extrusion process. The material is cut, homogenised, warmed, dried and above all compacted to ensure constant extruder feeding. Here it is crucial that the temperature inside the cutter/compactor influences the degree of compacting of the material: the higher the temperature, the higher the degree of plastic material compacting. With the Counter Current system the feeding of the extruder from the cutter/compactor hardly depends on the compacting level of the plastic material, which in turn considerably broadens the range for optimum extruder feeding (Fig. 3). This means that the recycling system is not only more flexible in the selection of the operation point, it is also much more reliable in operation. INTAREMA® technology also represents a quantum leap in the field of post-consumer recycling. It stands out here above all through its high degree of flexibility. Although the input material typically fluctuates highly in terms of moisture, compactness and other parameters, the new technology ensures that the throughput and quality of the recycled pellets produced remain at a constantly high level. The fluctuations in post-consumer recycling result not only from mixed fractions of varying compositions, moisture, viscosity, type and degree of contamination but also especially from differently printed and laminated materials in the packaging sector. The new system likewise gives you the highest possible flexibility when processing materials with particularly high input moisture and contamination levels, such as e.g. washed agricultural films, washed post-consumer film flakes (PE-LD, PE-LLD, PE-HD), films with solid content such as paper, wood or metals and also thick-walled regrind materials from waste automobile and electronic goods, PS cups and PE lids.