Nordson system conserving energy and enhancing productivity at Lotte UK

Lotte Chemical UK has released an on-site video showing how melt filtration and pelletising technologies from Nordson Corporation are helping to conserve energy and enhance productivity at its 600-tonne per day PET resin plant.

Commissioned late in 2014, the world-scale plant at Lotte Chemical’s Redcar facility includes three pelletising/crystallising units based on Nordson’s patented BKG CrystallCut process, which saves energy by retaining heat from the molten polymer and using it for crystallisation.

The installation also includes a Nordson Kreyenborg POLY screen changer, whose quick-change operation makes possible filter screen replacement while maintaining continuous production.

Conventionally, PET pellets are cooled after pelletising, then reheated for crystallisation. The video shows how the CrystallCut process eliminates cooling by rapidly transporting pellets from the cutter face of the die through hot water and directly into a centrifugal dryer. The pellets exit the dryer at a temperature of 140 to 150 °C. and are uniformly crystallised.

“For a modern, world-scale PET plant operating ‘24/7,’ we estimate that the CrystallCut system can save millions of Euros per year in energy costs by combining pelletising and crystallising into a single integrated process without a cooling step,” said Ralf Simon, Nordson BKG Managing Director.

“And because the retained heat causes pellets to crystallise from the inside out, the result is an improved crystalline structure that requires less energy for re-melting.”

The new video also includes an animation showing how screen packs are replaced in the patented Kreyenborg POLY melt filtration system. There are four pairs of screen packs mounted on two movable pistons, with two pairs side-by-side on each piston. As one pair is disengaged from the process for screen replacement, melt filtration continues in the other three.  

“The operator-friendly POLY screen changer makes it possible to replace screen packs without any system shutdown,” said Sven Conrad, Melt Filtration Business Director. “The system has a high capacity designed to provide efficient filtration in large-volume polymerisation operations.”

The video can be accessed at this link: http://www.nordson.com/en/divisions/polymer-processing-systems/products/pelletizers/crystallcut