Artec Recycling System - new and modular
At the K show 2013 Artec presented its new modular component machine design for all machine components.
Artec has established itself among recycling machinery companies, having built over 250 recycling systems in the last 15 years. Since 2010, Artec is a member of the industrial group, GAW Technologies GmbH, based in Graz, Austria. Since then, the Artec recycling system has been completely redesigned as an answer to the ever increasing demands for post-consumer plastic material with higher degrees of contamination and moisture content. Agricultural film can be processed as well as trimmings from post-industrial new film production or PET packaging, to name a few. The Artec solution is a system consisting of 6 modules in different sizes and for different capacities that can be combined with each other in a very flexible way.
These 6 modules are:
- Material Feeding (including metal detector)
- Cutter-Compactor (for the agglomeration and pre-drying of the input material)
- Extruding
- Degassing (for the elimination of gaseous contamination, e.g. low-molecular plastic fractions or moisture)
- Filtration
- Pelletizing
Maximum flexibility
Another advantage of this modular machine design is the possibility to exchange individual modules along with changing production demands. Several configurations for the cutter-compactor are available as well as different extruder configurations with up to 4 degassing openings and different extruder screw configurations. In order to increase production capacity of the extruder, a new cooling and temperature control system has been designed for the input zone of the screw. This increases the extruder's ability to take in material with low melting point without melting it.
Consistently ergonomic machine design
One of the most noticeable innovations of the new Artec machine system is the ergonomic improvement of all system components. The cutter-compactor features a new, enlarged maintenance opening. The condensate containers of the degassing system are more easily accessible, and the system now offers a new, movable control cabinet. The newly designed HMI (Human Machine Interface) is height-adjustable to adapt to the ergonomic requirements of the operator. The machine control software has been completely redesigned for flexibility and user-friendliness. The concept is logical, self-explanatory and clearly visualizes the complete process. A recipe management system with extensive data storage has been integrated. Optionally, the system can be connected to the internet to allow long-distance troubleshooting and maintenance as well as collection of production data from remote locations. Additionally, a remote display is available, which allows the operator to walk around the machine to facilitate start-up and production supervision.
New Partnership with KraussMaffei-Berstorff
Just before the K exhibition in 2013, Artec signed a partnership agreement with one of the leading manufacturers for extrusion machinery, KraussMaffei-Berstorff, based in Hanover, Germany. The partnership combines Artec's recycling know-how and machinery design with KraussMaffei-Berstorff's compounding experience. With these two technologies working together, recycled material can be compounded with virgin material and additional components such as fillers, enhancers or color to produce the highest quality products. This technology creates an increase in the amount of recycled material, saves large amounts of energy and process material, and eliminates the need for material storage between processes.
