Efficiency Improvements in PVC Recycling

At its factory near Barcelona, Renolit manufactures high quality flexible PVC films. Thanks to its innovative SFneos Filtration System from Gneuss – the latest addition to its range of process-constant, continuous screen changers, Renolit is now able to reuse a significant percentage of recycled material without any compromises regarding product quality or production efficiency.

The flexible PVC films made by Renolit are coated on to polyester and in spite of separating processes, the scrap still contains a small amount of residual polyester. This is sufficient to cause problems with conventional slide plate screen changers – the frequent changes due to the contamination load result in production interruptions and flow disturbances which, with flexible PVC lead to frequent burnups.

The SFneos screen changer supplied to Renolit by Gneuss was extensively customised to exactly match the twin screw extruder, with extremely short and streamlined flow paths, designed with the help of flow simulation software. The SFneos operates continuously and pressure-stable, even with high and varying contamination loads. Thanks to these unique performance characteristics of the SFneos, Renolit was able to process a high percentage of recycling containing residual polyester without production interruptions and were therefore able to significantly increase the yield and efficiency of their existing extrusion line without compromising their product quality. At the same time, by using waste material (and this material is generally seen as difficult to recycle) Renolit is saving valuable resources.