Schwing Technologies to showcase thermal vacuum cleaning technology at Equiplast
As a specialist for thermal cleaning systems, Schwing Technologies will be exhibiting at Equiplast (14-17 September), where Virgilio Perez Guembe, Head of Sales, will discuss the advantages of thermal vacuum cleaning technology.
A typical application for the VACUCLEAN system is the cleaning of plastics from machine parts and tooling. In the plastics and recycling industry, these include laser filters, filter candles, granulating nozzles and discs, as well as die plates and extruder screws. With Schwing's efficient and effective systems, all plastics and recyclates are removed quickly, safely and cost-effectively.
Perez Guembe said: "Our packaging customers use our particularly gentle and environmentally friendly vacuum pyrolysis technology to clean these filters. Our VACUCLEAN systems clean quickly and in a single operation, which saves not only time but manpower.”
Examples of these applications are approximately 85x35cm metal filters used in the manufacturing process of fruit and vegetable trays. The producer, a Spanish packaging manufacturer, works with rPET. The company cleans its filters daily, using vacuum pyrolysis technology and Schwing’s expertise in cleaning. Technical factors such as the cleaning time, vacuum atmosphere, exact temperature curve and maximum temperature of the entire process were tailored to the filter systems and this user’s rPET.
Cleaning takes place in an electrically heated vacuum cleaning chamber, where the temperature is measured directly at the filter. The pyrolysis process that decomposes the rest of the polymer starts at around 440°C. Remaining carbon is removed by a subsequent oxidation phase at around 450°C. All this happens fully automatically and leaves almost no residue. If necessary, the last inorganic residues are removed manually with compressed air.
To digitally optimise the fully automatic cleaning process, the Schwing development team has improved the thermal vacuum pyrolysis system with several new components. In addition to a new touchscreen panel with network connection, the digital components include an internal data connection for data logging and digital system documentation in the Schwing cloud.
Further technical innovations include fully electronic flow measurement for catalyst supply air, a process signal lamp, and a revised fault reporting concept. "All of these measures significantly reduce cleaning times, which is particularly important for our customers in the plastics and recycling industry," Perez Guembe concluded.