The circular economy for plastics can only be achieved with the highest possible quality of recycled pellets. The recycling machine manufacturer EREMA is a pioneer with many years of development experience when it comes to actually implementing what is technically feasible. With its new development INTAREMA® TVEplus® DuaFil® Compact, the company is redefining the quality level for recycling particularly challenging post-consumer materials, and is doing so with significantly reduced energy consumption.

A key feature of the innovative double filtration machine is the consistently gentle treatment of the melt throughout the entire process. This is the result of combining TVEplus® technology, patented and proven thousands of times over, with the new DuaFil® Compact technology. "Because there is no discharge metering zone and the melt pump is custom designed to the application, the pressure build-up required for the second filtration unit is especially efficient and only needs a much lower temperature", explains Sebastian Sochor, R&D Engineer at EREMA.

The extruder does not need to build up pressure and can be built much shorter, 10 L/D shorter compared to the previous EREMA double filtration solution. The lower melt temperature of the DuaFil® Compact in this area has a positive effect on the melt quality and significantly reduces energy consumption", says Sochor.

Lower melt temperature, lower energy consumption
That is how the new INTAREMA® TVEplus® DuaFil® Compact 1108 achieves a melt temperature upstream of the second filter unit that is 18.5 degrees Celsius lower than the previous EREMA double filtration solution when processing LDPE supermarket film containing paper, and consumes 10 percent less energy overall (specific energy consumption kWh/kg). Another advantage is in the processing of LDPE/LLDPE material streams that often have varying degrees of moisture and contamination due to impurities such as paper labels, wood particles or foreign polymers. These get into the material stream through splinters from pallets or strapping bands and can lead to the formation of unpleasant odours and discolouration. This is where the DuaFil® Compact Zone really comes into its own, because operating at a lower melt temperature very effectively prevents the combustion that would otherwise cause these odours.

All these features make the new INTAREMA® TVEplus® DuaFil® Compact machine the first choice for post-consumer applications where polymer-conserving processing and strong filtration performance are important. "Ultimately, the high quality of the recycled pellets that we achieve with this system creates the opportunity to increasingly replace virgin material with recycled material in end products, meeting the current market trend and sustainability requirements," says Michael Heitzinger, Managing Director, EREMA GmbH.