Early this year, Herbold Meckesheim GmbH commissioned the latest state-of-the-art washing line for PET bottles in Kazakhstan. The operator of the line, Vtorma Ecology, has also built the first big waste grading plant in Almaty. The positively sorted PET bottles are transformed by the Herbold washing line into a high-quality ground material. These machines have been designed to treat highly contaminated bottles from the waste grading plant.
The line with a max. input of 8000 tons per year comprises the following processing steps:
1st separation step:
- Separation of polyolefines and PET flakes
- Hot washing step with ultra-filtrations to remove the glue from the washing water
2nd separation step:
- Hydrocyclone separation step
- drying step with following size reduction to the wanted final granule size with a residual humidity of 1 %.
This processing step is supported by the sorting of the flakes in order to separate dust, fibres, paper and label rests. The end product is a high-quality ground material that can be further treated and used for bottle to bottle applications, high-quality fibres and plastic strappings.
Herbold Meckesheim™s washing line concept is based on a modular system and can be extended and adapted step by step to meet customers€™ demands or according to the materials to be treated. Herbold washing lines have been designed for an input of upto 16000 tons per year.
An additional second washing line has been developed for PE film waste.
Fig.1: Hot Wash Step