Extrusion Asia Edition 2-2022

46 2022 Extrusion Asia Edition 2/2022 feld-cincinnati offers the right machinery and equipment, from customized single components all the way to optimized turnkey lines. The extrusion specialist based in Bad Oeynhausen, Germany thus serves customers from the pipe, profile and board industries as well as producers of film, sheet and granulates. “The spe- cial feature of our complete line is that they not only consist of perfectly syn- chronized individual components without any interface problems, but also come en- tirely from a single source”, is how the group’s Managing Director and CEO Ge- rold Schley describes its product range’s unique selling point. At the K, batten- feld-cincinnati will visualize its complete line competence for the first time by un- veiling the new, consistent design of its pipe extrusion lines, this year’s winner of the coveted IF Award. It is only logical, that the top issues of cir- cular economy, digitization and climate protection at this year’s leading world trade fair precisely reflects what is on the mind of the entire plastics industry. “Our motto ‘Sustainable solutions worldwide’ has lost none of its actuality, so we are presenting extrusion equipment in Düs- seldorf this year which meets our custom- ers’ demands for concepts offering energy efficiency, space-saving footprints, low maintenance, flexibility and high per- formance”, Gerold Schley emphasizes. Water management and new design for the pipe industry At the K, battenfeld-cincinnati will unveil the new complete line standardised de- sign, with which all pipe extrusion lines will be presented from 2023 onwards in the battenfeld-cincinnati corporate co- lours. Apart from the visual effect, the functionality of the new design is the most important attractive feature: opti- mal accessibility and user-friendliness in- cluding easy cleaning features are the main attributes. All aggregates starting from the extruder to the calibration and cooling units and the vacuum tank, right up to the cutting saw and the tilt table, are manufactured in-house by battenfeld- cincinnati, perfectly matched not only technically and now also visually, without any interface problems, and integrated into the intuitive-to-operate BCtouch UX control system. battenfeld-cincinnati offers complete lines for the pipe industry to cover an enormous diversity of applications, rang- ing from drip irrigation in agriculture right up to large-diameter pipes for water ma- nagement. Both these extremes will be shown at the K booth. In large-diameter pipes, a new record has actually been set. The first lines to produce pipes up to 2,700 mm in diameter have been deli- vered. Two highlights of the large-diame- ter pipe extrusion lines are the pipe die with Optimelt, providing ideal melt ho- mogenization with lowest melt tempera- tures to minimize sagging. With the completely new constructed 4 m long segments of the downstream unit bat- tenfeld-cincinnati addresses the enor- mous dimensions of the equipment and the related transport problems. For the first time, there are vacuum tanks and spray baths which come in segments only 4 m long. These single aggregates can ea- sily be transported and are easy to as- semble on the production site. Visitors to the K booth can witness bat- tenfeld-cincinnati’s drip irrigation exper- tise by a video presentation of the new line set up for customer test runs in its technical lab in Bad Oeynhausen. The highlight here are the drippers, which come in a design both simple and inge- nious to ensure a very even continuous water dispensation. During the extrusion process these drippers, developed by bat- tenfeld-cincinnati with a partner com- pany, are shot through the pipe die and fully welded into the pipe at once while it is still hot. Drilling or punching holes in the drippers for the water outlets are no longer required. At the same time, the design of the drippers ensures a long ser- vice life on site without clogging of the water outlets with limescale, soiling or plant growth. Another novelty at the K booth is the small solEX NG, which completes the high-speed extruder series for pipe extru- sion at its smallest size. From now on, the solEX NG 45 will be available in addition to the four solEX NG models already existing in the sizes of 60, 75, 90 and 120 mm. A striking attribute of this series is the combination of internally grooved barrels with a matching special screw geometry, which offers several advan- tages: up to 40% higher outputs, about 10 °C lower melt temperatures and 15 % less energy consumption. Ideal extrusion solutions for eco- friendly products Floor coverings based on highly filled plastics have experienced enormous growth in recent years. These are often PVC-based formulations. In view of the sustainability discussions, it is becoming apparent that PP will take on a leading role in this area and partially replace PVC. The requirements for floor coverings in terms of absence of tension, flatness and thickness tolerance are extremely high due to the following processing steps, such as printing, as well as the later ap- plication area. The semi-crystalline struc- ture of PP makes the task even more difficult. It turns out, that for the production of en- vironmentally friendly floor coverings made of PP the Multi-Touch roll stack from battenfeld-cincinnati is very suitable. This was clearly demonstrated in practical use by several first customers. This unique roll stack, equipped with up to nine cool- ing rolls for pre-calibration and re-calibra- tion, ensures a long phase of intense contact between the board and the cool- ing rolls after the melt has left the flat die. The cooling of the top and bottom side takes place almost simultaneously. In this way, a dimensionally accurate, visually at- tractive semi-finished product with ideal Dripper