Researchers at the University of Leipzig, Germany, have discovered an enzyme in compost piles that degrades PET in record time. Is this the solution to the problem with plastic waste?

Researchers at the University of Leipzig, Germany, have discovered an enzyme in compost piles that degrades PET in record time. This plastic-guzzler has already proved convincing in the lab. It decomposed 90 % of PET within 16 hours. In this way, a plastic tray could be degraded in less than 24 hours.

Reports such as these raise the hope that plastic wastes and their associated problems will one day be broken down in an environmentally sound way. In principle, it is like a diet. Of course, you can help lower the scale reading by reducing your calorie intake. But you can only achieve sustainable weight loss with a balanced diet and exercise.

In terms of the plastics industry, it means that reduction and abstinence are one and the same thing. In addition, it is important to get the maximum out of the “calories” supplied. In other words, to keep as many plastics as possible moving and recycled. However, the circular economy is not a sprint, but a marathon. Besides physical fitness, the long haul also presupposes the correct mindset – not only on competition day.

If industry today uses recyclates, forgoes material composites and increases recycling quotas, that does not make up for the errors of the past. For many years, they didn’t think at all about what happens when plastic products become waste.

It is clear that enzymes will not solve the problem on their own. Even the researchers point out that the process has its limits and does not work for every plastic. As soon as the PET has been stretched, as in bottles and fibers, it is too much for the enzyme. Not to mention other plastics. For the circular economy – as well as for a marathon – endurance is required.

16:9

Editorial Ehrhardt

Ehrhardt, Melanie

Minus-CO2 Factories for  Climate-Friendly Plastics

The Carbonauten’s enticing approach centers on producing plastic, fertilizer and activated carbon and ”incidentally” protecting the climate. The start-up is working on carbonization plants that convert biomass into biocarbons, within which the CO2 is permanently bound.

The Carbonauten converts wood waste into biocarbons and bind harmful CO2 in the process. This is an idea that could make the plastics industry take notice.

Trees absorb atmospheric CO2 during photosynthesis and store the carbon in their wood. If the tree dies and the wood rots, the carbon compounds are reconverted to CO2, methane and nitrous oxide, before being returned to the atmosphere. The carbonauten interrupts this process by producing plant carbon (biocarbons), within which the carbon dioxide is permanently bound. And the start-up leverages a tried-and-tested process to make all this happen, namely pyrolysis. We present the company and its founder Torsten Becker as part of our start-up series “New Plastic Heroes”.

Kunststoffe: Mr. Becker, what would be the elevator pitch of the Carbonauten?

Torsten Becker: We develop and produce customized CO2-negative master batches and compounds. This involves carbonizing woody biomass residues into technical biocarbons as part of a pyrolysis process at decentralized production sites, which are then refined and compounded with various polymers. One ton of the engineered biocarbons stores up to 3.3 t of CO2. The carbonization plants generate 90 % surplus energy in the process, which is used to produce the compounds and sold to third parties. The loading levels of technical biocarbons within the granules are up to 80 %.

Kunststoffe: How did the idea come to you?

Becker: As a product designer, the drive to replace material with knowledge is what spurs me on. Given the extraordinary physical properties of biocarbons, I was fascinated to see whether they could help open the door to a new category of materials. In 2017, I founded carbonauten as part of efforts to develop a system for industry that would reduce emissions and costs. Two years later, we did a first test with SKZ using polylactide and 30 % biocarbon. It went well and gave us further motivation. We then applied for a PCT patent (Patent Cooperation Treaty, editor‘s note) for carbonauten NET Materials.

Kunststoffe: For which industries is the NET material most relevant?

Becker: It really depends. Plastics and construction industries are currently top of mind, as well as agriculture.

Kunststoffe: Can you give an example or cite any customer project from the plastics industry?

Becker: Well, from well over a dozen projects, I personally find that the GoPro transport box for Plastmeccanica, the trolley for transporting labtops for Formcase, two larger interior parts for a towel dispenser and the trunk tray for an automotive manufacturer the ones that really stand out. Meanwhile, we are producing percentages of engineered biocarbons in PP, ABS, PS, PE, PLA, PBS and PBAT as high as 50 % and see potential to push that as high as 80 % or more.

Kunststoffe: What has been the best success of your start-up so far?

Becker: Our greatest successes include financing our first „Minus CO2 Factory“ and bringing it to fruition in Eberswalde, plus the start-up last month of course.

Kunststoffe: Did you also experience setbacks, or what have been the biggest challenges to date?

Becker: The funding, the funding and the funding!

Kunststoffe: What is special about your biocarbon?

Becker: Well they are technical biocarbons with properties that we can influence through our pyrolysis via temperatures, temperature profile, residence time and surfaces. This has an impact on the BioC composites. They can also be produced cheaply and are ground into micro- and nanometer-sized particles. Cooling takes place within 2.5 hours – without water. Only we can do that at present.

Kunststoffe: What are the „basic ingredients“ for your biocarbon and how is it produced?

Becker: The basic ingredients are woody biomass residues from forestry, agriculture, food, wood and general industry. Foreign substances like metals, minerals and plastics may also be present, as our carbonization technology has no rotating parts. This also makes them robust, flexible and economical.

Kunststoffe: How much CO2 can you save with it?

Becker: Savings can be made at various points: Biocarbon produced from pyrolysis actively removes CO2 from the atmosphere via photosynthesis and permanently sequesters it. Each ton of biocarbon physically stores the equivalent of up to 3.3 t of CO2. Up to 80 % is realistic for petroleum-based plastics, and up to 50 % for bio-based plastics.

Founder, CEO and dreamer Torsten Becker (left) with Christoph Hiemer (co-founder and main shareholder) 

Carbonauten - Hauptartikel

Carbonauten: Minus-CO2 Factories for Climate-Friendly Plastics

<ul><li>Name: Carbonauten GmbH</li><li>Founded: 2017 in Giengen an der Brenz, Germany</li><li>Total customers: > 30</li><li>Number of employees: 54</li><li>Homepage: <a href="https://carbonauten.de/en/" target="_blank">https://carbonauten.de</a>/en </li></ul>

Read the German version of the article in our magazine Kunststoffe or at <a href="https://www.kunststoffe.de/a/interview/minus-colesssubgreater2lesssubgreater-fa-3436194" target="_blank">www.kunststoffe.de</a>

Kunststoffe

Photonik

Optik

Kunststoff Werkstoffe

Nachhaltigkeit

Umweltmanagement

Start up

Wirtschaft

Unternehmen und Unternehmer

Why the Classic Product Development Process Blocks Innovative Manufacturing Processes

The goal of all companies is to navigate the value-adding process of product development with as little wastage as possible. They try to achieve this by relying on tried-and-true approaches that, however, leave a lot of potential unused. The remedy is to rethink within the process. The resulting new perspective facilitates the use of innovative materials, product and tool designs – but only if the necessary expertise is incorporated into the process at the right time.

A lean innovation process needs waste – by frontloading various solutions.

Various stage-gate models in the literature describe the product development process (PDP) rigidly in the form of an idealized sequence. Each stage ends with a gate at which the activities must have been completed and the essential insights gained [1, 2]. Although each innovation project is unique, PDP can in principle be standardized, with the work packages varying in scope or sometimes, in the case of small projects, being eliminated. However, it often transpires that the sequence cannot be adhered to in reality. For one thing, in a world plagued by VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity), requirements keep changing throughout the project and, for another, errors or unexpected results spawn optimization loops that can hook back into all PDP stages (Fig. 1).

In this context, by waste is meant, on one hand, the unnecessary consumption of resources (e.g. due to changes and optimization loops) and, on the other, activities that fail to add value, e.g. when the value stream is interrupted by incorrect distribution of essential information. As ways of avoiding waste, lean management methods have proven their worth. The classic lean methods deployed in production, logistics and administration are concerned with optimizing plannable, repetitive work packages and are therefore of limited usefulness in a context of a creative, one-off PDP. New methods have therefore been developed for PDP that are subsumed under the term “lean innovation”; many agile approaches from software development have also been assimilated [3].

Paradoxically, lean PDP starts with deliberate wasting (frontloading), namely detailed analyses of different solutions (in the solution space) simultaneously. In this process, not only are the solutions examined with regard to product requirements, but, especially in the case of plastic parts, the design of the tools and, perhaps, of other operating equipment is also worked out and evaluated. Only in this way can a statement be made as to whether the solution can later be implemented in production to the required level of quality and at a competitive cost.

Initially, this work is carried out in parallel for all solutions in the solution space. As the project progresses, unworkable solutions are gradually eliminated until the best remaining solution is developed through to completion. Experience has shown that the additional effort expended on the initial parallel development pays off many times over in the number of optimization loops saved in the series launch– not to mention the fact that this supposed roundabout approach avoids excessive manufacturing costs incurred by unworkable solutions.

In the classic PDP of the IATF stage model (Fig. 2), tool approval occurs after development to series-production readiness has been completed, i.e. only then are the tools requested, ordered from the selected supplier or the in-house tool shop, and finally designed and constructed. This approach makes sense if, in the preceding stages, development of the parts has been optimized for plastics and production [3, 4].

In practice, this is often not the case. Each manufacturing process imposes specific requirements on part design and technical implementation in construction. Unless these are met, the problems usually only become apparent in the pre-series and series production stages, at which stage the errors can only be rectified by making extensive changes to the tools and sometimes to the parts as well. Even then, series production of the parts often comes at the expense of higher costs and/or quality defects.

Tool Design, Simulation and Tolerance Calculation

OEMs and suppliers in the automotive industry are continuously wrestling with this issue and trying to optimize their processes accordingly. This is why current OEM approaches to PDP advocate making an initial tool design available at in the series-development or even the prototype stages (Fig. 2). But even this occurs too late, because, by the time design freeze has been reached, but input from tooling, production, quality, etc. must significantly influence the product and manufacturing concept.

In order to be able to assess in the concept stage whether a product can be manufactured, injection molding simulations on one hand and tolerance calculations on the other are essential. Neither of these is possible without a detailed mold design, because a simulation performed only on the part geometry is of little informative value. For the tolerance calculation, definitions are needed as to which dimensions are tool-constrained and which are not, as well as which areas, for example, are at risk of warpage and therefore cannot be closely toleranced. These issues are also inextricably linked to material selection, because the material is a major factor in both simulation and tolerances according to ISO 20457.

Better Products through Innovative Special Processes

Even if the parts lend themselves to normal compact injection molding, the analyses conducted in the concept stage are essential for implementing production to a high level of quality and at low cost. However, some parts cannot be manufactured to the required quality level by compact injection molding or, if so, in insufficient quality due to warpage or sink marks, for example, or at high cost due to long cycle times caused by material accumulation, for example. In such cases, special production processes can offer a way to manufacture such parts in the first place or at an acceptable cost. However, these processes usually have to be factored in at the part concept stage.

Innovative special processes and mold designs possess not only the potential for avoiding problems with quality and achieving cost advantages, but also for making a significant contribution to the sustainability of a product by conserving material and energy. They also open up alternative possibilities in the shaping and design of parts and surfaces. These methods can even eliminate entire processing steps, e.g. when a part is coated with a soft-touch surface in a 2-component injection molding process [6].

However, in product development there is usually a lack of expertise in identifying suitable special production processes, creating tool designs and performing useful simulations. As a result, useful special processes are deployed relatively rarely. It is therefore not technical constraints or insufficient testing that is hindering their use, but rather the classic sequential PDP workflow.

Simultaneous Engineering as  a Problem Solver

This problem can be solved by making this expertise available as early as possible in the form of a simultaneous engineering (SE) team. If an OEM or supplier has its own production or tooling expertise, the SE team can use that expertise to develop the new product. Any specific competencies not available in-house, e.g. injection molding simulations, can be purchased from specialist service providers.

Otherwise, suitable strategic partners need to be onboarded as early as the concept stage, and in some cases even as early as the quotation stage (Fig. 3). Since detailed inquiry documents cannot exist at this early stage in the PDP, the award proceeds on the basis of an open-book calculation and suitable assumptions. Once the development phase is complete, the series price is then calculated by mutual agreement on this basis, using the actual conditions (material, weight, cycle time, etc.).

External Gas Molding Avoids Warpage and Sink Marks

An example of a relatively unknown and rarely employed process – although it has been on the market for over 20 years – is external gas molding (EGM). Flat parts that have to meet high aesthetic demands on the visible side and on flatness, as well as feature embossed functional elements on the back side (ribs, screw domes, and the like), cannot be practicably produced by compact injection molding. Consider the base plate of a one-legged TV stand (Fig. 4). Here, the external gas pressure is directed across a wide area of the back of the part, replacing the holding pressure from the molding machine. Consequently, the melt is forced into the nozzle side, with the result that no sink marks occur and the uniform gas pressure leads to uniform shrinkage and so avoids warpage [7] (Fig. 5).

In this case, it was essential make recourse to the special process, but this process can also effect a significant improvement for many flat visible parts, such as high-gloss decorative trim in automotive interiors, which are difficult to produce by compact injection molding. Of course, there is no one special process that suits all parts, but there is at least one advantageous special process for virtually all problem parts.

To achieve this, the parts must be designed in the concept stage, i.e. before the final product design has been determined (design freeze), and in such a way that the special processes can be deployed, usually in a different way than for compact injection molding.

If, in the concept stage, it is recognized that the product cannot be made by compact injection molding, project teams are already looking for other solutions. But in the many cases in which the product is or appears to be contingently manufacturable by compact injection molding, this is not done by classic PDP. This means that the huge potential for greater sustainability, higher quality and lower costs goes untapped. This is an unacceptable state of affairs today – but one which, fortunately, can also be easily changed.

[1] Schömann, S.: Produktentwicklung in der Automobilindustrie. Gabler, Wiesbaden 2012

[2] Gericke, K.; Bender, B.; Pahl, G.; Beitz, W.; Feldhusen, J.; Grote, K.-H.: Der Produktentwicklungsprozess. In: Bender, B.; Gericke, K. (Hrsg.); Pahl, G.; Beitz, W.: Konstruktionslehre. 9. Aufl., Springer, Berlin 2021, pp. 57–93

[3] Schuh, G.; Dölle, C.: Sustainable Innovation. Springer, Berlin 2021

[4] IATF 16949: Anforderungen an Qualitätsmanagementsysteme für die Serien- und Ersatzteilproduktion in der Automobilindustrie, Ausgabe: 01.10.2016

[5] Dietert, T.; Ranig, R.: Nachhaltiger Produktentstehungsprozess für den Automobil-Innenraum. In: Vogt, R. (Hrsg.): Nachhaltige Mobilität der Zukunft. KCFM Schriftenreihe der FOM Band 1. MA Akademie Verlags- und Druck-Gesellschaft mbH, Essen 2022, pp. 101–137

[6] Fischer, M.; Kaufmann, R.; Giordani, A.: Soft-Touch for the Price of 2-Component Injection Molding. Kunststoffe international 102 (2012) 3, pp. 54–57

[7] Stieler, U.: Innovative Kombination von Prozessen führt zu höchsten Oberflächenqualitäten. Plasticker 27.06.2011, URL: <a href="https://plasticker.de/Kunststoff_Fachartikel_109_Innovative_Kombination_von_Prozessen_fhrt_zu_hchsten_Oberflchenqualitten" target="_blank">https://plasticker.de/Kunststoff_Fachartikel_109_Innovative_Kombination_von_Prozessen_fhrt_zu_hchsten_Oberflchenqualitten</a>; Last accessed: 15.01.2023

Fig. 1. Classic product development  and actual innovation often diverge.

Fig. 2. Stage model with gates, based on the Cooper representation (stage-gate process) and the content of IATF 16949.

Source: Gericke et al. [2] / IATF [4]; graphic: © Hanser

Fig. 3. The early integration of tool design (WZK), tool making (WZB) and production know-how into the PDP requires a decision as to whether in-house expertise is available or whether strategic partners with their experts need to be brought on board the SE team. The chart shows the parallel paths that must lead to the same detailed status until mold approval is obtained.

Source: Dietert/Ranig [5]; graphic: © Hanser

Fig. 4. TV stand produced by the external gas pressure process. The special features are the stiffening ribs and screw domes on the back (right), which do not give rise to any sink marks on the high-gloss side.

Fig. 5. Schematic of the external gas pressure process. The external gas pressure replaces the holding pressure from the injection molding machine and leads to uniform shrinkage.

Hauptartikel

Frontloading: Developing Better Products and Processes

Prof. Dr. Tilko Dietert is Professor of Industrial Engineering at the FOM University Nuremberg, Germany, and Chair of Lean Management Consulting, a consulting company for plastics processing and mold making, in Gunzenhausen, Germany; <a href="mailto:tilko@dr-dietert.eu">tilko@dr-dietert.eu</a>

Ragna Ranig, <a href="http://B.Sc" target="_blank">B.Sc</a>., studied Industrial Engineering at the FOM University Munich, Germany and works as a development engineer for a development service provider to the automotive industry in Munich; <a href="mailto:ragna.ranig@googlemail.com">ragna.ranig@googlemail.com</a>

Read the German version of the article in our magazine Kunststoffe or at <a href="https://www.kunststoffe.de/a/fachartikel/frontloading-statt-fire-fighting-3436185" target="_blank">www.kunststoffe.de</a>

Spritzgießen

Kunststoffverarbeitung: Verfahren

Produktentwicklung (F+E)

Spritzgieß-Sonderverfahren

Produktentwicklung(sprozess)

Qualitätsmanagement

Review of the Arburg Anniversary Days from March 8 to 11, 2023

The networking of machines and systems is key to achieving resource-efficient production while strengthening the resilience of plastics processing in the long term. At Anniversary Days 2023, Arburg gave an insight into the expanding universe of its digital solutions.

Arburg has now packed numerous digital services into an app for smartphones and tablets. Among them: assistance in saving energy.

No sooner had the time-out caused by Covid-19 been overcome than Arburg suspended its Technology Days for another year. However, it was only to give the event with the title “Anniversary Days,” which has been held since 1999, a coat of golden paint this time. The occasion for this is the 100th anniversary of the company’s founding by the Hehl family, which eventually developed into the globally active injection molding machine manufacturer, with its central production site in Lossburg, Germany.

Arburg has repeatedly demonstrated its adaptability and innovative strength over decades. According to the managing partner Michael Hehl at a press conference on the eve of the four-day in-house trade show, these properties lie in the company’s DNA, as well as the good Swabian tradition of frugality, which is now better translated as economic efficiency, sustainability and resource efficiency. In the present day, everything is overlaid by digitalization – an area in which “we want to continue to be pioneers,” confirmed Jürgen Boll, Managing Director for Finance, Controlling and IT. “The aim is to strengthen our customers with digital solutions so that they can master the challenges of the present and future.” The digital product passport is the basis for a functioning circular economy, as well as the development of assistance systems on the machine, in order to compensate for the growing shortage of skilled personnel.

Digital features can make a significant contribution to increasing the energy and production efficiency of machines and systems. An important role here is played by the customer portal arburgXworld (aXw), which, according to Boll, is now used by over 3500 companies and more than 10,000 users, with a rising trend. The machine manufacturer has now also packed all the digital services that include comprehensive know-how from Arburg into the app for smartphones and tablets (Title figure).

This thus shifts the focus onto support and optimization of internal processes and workflows, so that customers can now manage their own tickets and messages in the “ServiceCenter,” and display them visually in the “aXw Shopfloor Board” for stand-up meetings. A new option for equipment comparison helps to quickly find the best machine for the upcoming injection molding process in production planning. The “Ready2Go” app was also expanded; it lists all the machines that Arburg can deliver at short notice.

A new feature in the “MachineCenter” app is a multistage energy label: Each Allrounder injection molding machine is assigned to one of three energy efficiency classes (Fig. 1). Depending on the machine, individual proposals for energy optimization, for example by means of retrofits, are obtained from the customer portal. As examples of effective machine upgrades, Gerhard Böhm, Managing Director for Sales and Service, mentioned full insulation of the cylinder (up to 40 % savings potential depending on the process), the installation of air-cooled and water-cooled motors of efficiency class IE3 (up to 10 % savings potential) and the retrofitting of the Arburg energy saving system (AES). In addition to the energy label, the app also shows what CO2 footprint is left by the production of a machine (until delivery).

In line with the needs of industry, energy efficiency was an important theme of Anniversary Days. In the “Action Plan: Energy” initiative, Arburg, after detailed consultation with customers and (on request) on-site consumption measurements, has grouped together various measures to optimize the energy demand, beyond the individual machine, in the entire injection molding production, and in particular eliminate invisible energy guzzlers.

According to Böhm, the energy demand of a plant or the entire machine park can, in general, be displayed and evaluated via the dashboard of the Arburg host computer system (ALS) –provided that injection molding production is connected to this MES. ALS is a central element that allows users to digitally plan, control and track all the relevant information. “With a typical injection molding operation with 20 machines, use of the ALS can save about 1500 hours per year and 500 machine hours,” says Böhm, summarizing the result of a customer survey.

Of course, the digital Arburg cosmos also includes the numerous assistance functions of the Gestica machine control system, which assist staff in setting up and operating the machines – even with more challenging processes, such as recyclate processing (“aXw Control RecyclatePilot”) or to monitor the heating zones of the plasticizing cylinder and hot-runner, and to regulate them for the lowest as possible consumption (“aXw Control EnergyAssist”). “But we have already answered the important question of what an energy-optimized machine of the future should look like,” says Böhm, making another splash.

The Allrounder 470 H Comfort model, which was placed in the customer center against a golden background, received a correspondingly high level of interest (Fig. 2). “The new machine generation contains many technical innovations that are only available from and at Arburg,” explained Guido Frohnhaus, Managing Director for Technology. Thanks to the three performance variants “Comfort,” “Premium” and “Ultimate,” as well as various injection units and other options, the new machines – further sizes will follow – can be precisely adapted to the particular customer’s requirements. The external characteristic is the combination of electrical clamping unit and servohydraulic injection unit. Compared to an all-hydraulic machine, the energy balance of the Allrounder 470 H, according to Frohnhaus, is up to 50 % better. Depending on the application, it can save up to 12,000 kg CO2 per year.

A new oil management concept with a two-part oil tank and a differential-pressure-capable oil filter housing contributes to further resource conservation: “On one hand, about 35 % less oil is required, on the other hand, the machine waste heat is used to preheat the oil. In addition, the required cooling water output is between 50 and 70 % lower,” says Frohnhaus. In the oil tank, hot, contaminated oil is separated from cold, clean hydraulic oil. Together with the constantly filtered and cooled return volume and selective flow control, the oil quality is improved and the lifetime of the components, and therefore the machine availability, is increased. The warning message for contaminated filters is at a level of 75 %, and therefore so early that a new filter can be procured well in advance. The result is no machine downtime.

Frohnhaus points out another thing: “The splitting of the flow from the hydraulic pump permits parallel driving of an additional hydraulic secondary axis. This technology has a particularly positive effect on production and energy efficiency for the high-performance hybrid Allrounder H machines.” As a result, the machines consume less energy in total, and at the same time cycle times are reduced. All in all, an “anniversary machine,” which corresponds to the spirit of the times in many details.

Via the customer portal, the individual apps – from the Arburg host computer system (ALS) to the ordering function – can also be operated using a smartphone.

Fig. 1. In the “MachineCenter” app, each injection molding machine is assigned to one of three energy efficiency classes (“+” to “+++”).

Fig. 2. Surrounded on all sides: The Allrounder 470 H Comfort hybrid machine, with new features, provides a topic of discussion.

Arburg Turns its Technology Days into Anniversary Days this Year

Arburg traditionally looks back at the past fiscal year at a press conference during Technology Days. Correspondingly, the machine manufacturer achieved sales of EUR 875 million in 2022. That represents an increase of 19 % compared to the previous year (EUR 735 million). According to the managing board, volume growth and price increases in the ratio of 2 to 1 contributed to this leap.

In 2022, Arburg also invested a total of EUR 26 million in manufacturing technology, production logistics and infrastructure, including new welding robots and a bending center, a large 3D measuring machine and a flexible manufacturing system with five new machining centers and a driverless transport system – the latter two are still under construction.

<a href="https://en.kunststoffe.de/a/news/in-house-trade-show-with-special-signs-3495020" target="_blank">en.kunststoffe.de/a/news/-3495020</a>

Read the German version of the article in our magazine Kunststoffe or at <a href="https://www.kunststoffe.de/a/fachartikel/mehr-sein-als-scheinen-3436178" target="_blank">www.kunststoffe.de</a>

Doriat, Clemens, Dr.

Digitale Transformation

Innovationen und neue Technologie

Hydraulik-Komponenten

Maschinenelemente

Energieeffizienz

Elektrische Antriebe für Spritzgießmaschinen

Antriebe

Elektrische Antriebe

Automatisierungstechnik

Spritzgießmaschinen

Kunststoffverarbeitung: Maschinen und Komponenten

Kreislaufwirtschaft

Around 2700 key players and newcomers from all over the world will be exhibiting at Interpack in Düsseldorf. Positive sign: The VDMA forecasts increased demand for packaged food and pharmaceutical packaging by 2026. The challenges facing the industry are reflected in the trade fair’s main themes. The solutions being developed to meet these challenges will be on display at the fair.

2700 key players and newcomers will be exhibiting in Düsseldorf, Germany. What challenges the industry has to face despite increasing demand.

We have been away for six years,” said Thomas Dohse, Director of Interpack, welcoming the trade journalists during the pre-show press conference at the end of February. The memory of having to cancel the 2020 trade fair shortly before the starting gun is still painful. The trade fair team has designed the welcome posters for the event with “Welcome home” in large letters – and is delighted with the fully booked exhibition center in Düsseldorf, Germany. The company relies on the proven hall concept, focusing on confectionery and bakery products, food, non-food and industrial goods, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, as well as packaging and packaging materials.

The international trade fair for the processing and packaging industry had its premiere in 1958. One of the first exhibitors was Uhlmann Pac-Systeme GmbH & Co. KG from Laupheim, Germany. This is also where this year’s pre-show press conference took place, looking forward to the fair. Matthias Niemeyer, CEO at Uhlmann, reported on trends and general conditions in the industry in his keynote speech. These include encouraging growth rates of 6 to 12 % in the pharmaceutical packaging market, especially in the areas of prefilled syringes, injectable drugs and the personalized medicine market. However, the regulations on data protection and the supply chain act as an obstacle to innovation and bureaucratic cost drivers, according to the company boss. Part of the tour of the plant was the live demonstration of the BEC 700 blister pack line, which combines feeder, blister pack machine, and cartoner over a length of over 10 m and produces up to 700 blisters packs or 500 folding cartons per minute.

Manufacturing quality products and increasing productivity, while at the same time reducing costs and producing sustainably – the challenges facing the packaging industry are complex. Answers to all these challenges are addressed in the four main themes of the fair.

<ul><li>The aim of the circular economy is to reuse packaging materials that have been recycled into high-quality materials at the end of their useful life. At the same time, attempts are being made to use less material through film thickness reduction and optimized shaping. Design for recycling is an important factor in increasing the recycling rate of plastics packaging.</li><li>Resource management: Machinery manufacturers are being asked to provide intelligent control and automation technology in order to use energy and raw materials more efficiently – for sustainable production and packaging.</li><li>Digital technologies offer opportunities to track business performance in real time and optimize existing processes. They also help reduce production, maintenance, and repair costs.</li><li>Product safety: Safe and hygienic production takes the highest priority in the food and pharmaceutical industries. Stringent international standards and guidelines must be met.</li></ul>

High Demand for Machines – Germany Leads the Way

Richard Clemens, Managing Director of VDMA Food Processing and Packaging Machinery, presented the industry statistics at the event. Global demand for machinery and equipment for the production, processing, and packaging of food, beverages, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetic products is on course for growth despite difficult conditions. After international trade in food processing and packaging machinery fell by 7 % to a value of EUR 41 billion in 2020, due to the Covid pandemic, it increased significantly again in 2021. According to preliminary data, world trade reached a value of EUR 44 billion in 2021, an increase of 6 % over the previous year, and was thus back to pre-crisis levels.

With an average export ratio of 84 % and a 21 % share of world trade volume in 2021, German manufacturers of food processing and packaging machinery are world leaders. German exports increased by almost 5 % to a value of EUR 9 billion in 2021. Italy comes next with exports worth EUR 8.9 billion, an increase of 8 % over the previous year.

Continued growth in the world’s population, increasing urbanization, higher employment rates, and rising incomes are driving global demand for packaged foods. According to the VDMA, the British market research company Euromonitor International forecasts that global sales of packaged foods will increase by a total of 14 % to 932 million t between 2021 and 2026. However, demand is developing differently from region to region. In developing regions and countries with lower per capita consumption, demand will increase at an above-average rate.

As far as the packaging material used is concerned, flexible and rigid plastics have grown significantly in recent years – and account for the largest share of the “packaging material cake” at 64 % (Fig. 1). By 2026, the consumer goods packaging sector is expected to grow by a further 15 %.

From Packaging Bashing to a  Tsunami of Regulations

Despite these growth forecasts, the VDMA Managing Director sees the industry facing major challenges. “The packaging bashing that affected us in 2020 went away with Covid. Then followed price increases for materials and energy as well as supply bottlenecks. We are currently in a phase of reorientation and are looking for new markets,” said Clemens. For example, an Africa strategy was launched by the VDMA for this purpose.

The tsunami of regulations from Brussels, Belgium, makes the starting points difficult for a German manufacturer of packaging machines. The European Packaging Directive is the focus of criticism here. “We need clarity on many issues – in all European countries,” said Clemens. “These include, for example, specifications for recyclates. As long as there are no markets for recycled materials, we do not think it makes sense to set quotas.”

The chart breaks down the market share of consumer goods packaging in the global retail trade in 2021 by material and growth. Overall, consumer goods packaging is expected to grow by 15 % by 2026.

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Early March saw Tomra open a second testing center at its German headquarters. Located in Mülheim-Kärlich, it will test out various sorting processes for different materials, focusing above all on assessing how effectively plastic waste is sorted.

At the beginning of March, Tomra opened a second testing center at its German head office to conduct thorough testing on a wider range of sorting processes.

Mülheim-Kärlich, Germany, with a population of just under 11,000 is situated in northern Rhineland-Palatinate. Wikipedia informs us that the sights include the Old Chapel in the Town Hall, the Roman Villa, numerous half-timbered houses and an educational fruit trail with over 250 trees and shrubs. But all this seems to have left the close-to 200 visitors who came to Mülheim-Kärlich from February 28 to March 2, 2023 relatively underwhelmed. Instead, their prime focus was on waste sorting Namely, the waste sorting conducted at Tomra. The company opened its second test center at its German head office.

On the first conference day, participants listened to presentations detailing the company’s strategic direction. The second day focused on the extension of the test facilities. “Ever-stricter legal regulations and higher recycling targets have seen the demand for recovering valuable materials from waste skyrocket, triggering an upsurge in demand for our sorting solutions and material tests. We‘ve been monitoring this trend over the past few years and have seen the testing capacity in Germany gradually reach its limits,” said Fabrizio Radice, VP and Head of Global Sales and Marketing at Tomra Recycling Sorting.

Previously, the company housed all of its waste and metal sorting machines in a single building. Now, with the new facility up and running, Tomra has a total of eight testing facilities at seven global locations, providing recyclers and plant operators alike with the chance to test their materials on sorting machines before making an investment. „We are constantly developing new sorting systems, all of which are installed in our testing center. As well as handling the growing demand for testing, we have rolled out several new products to the market over the past few years and plan to launch more in future. To ensure that we can accommodate our expanding portfolio, we have decided to invest in an additional building,“ adds Radice. Until recently, the company conducted around 500 to 600 customer and internal tests each year, and expects demand to continue rising in future.

While the facility already in place tests the waste sorting process, the new facility is solely focused on metal sorting. During the official opening, the industry partners, customers, and media representatives in attendance had the chance to witness a range of demo lines in action, including two for sorting polyethylene terephthalate (PET) packaging waste.

High Levels of Purity Achieved in Flake Sorting

One of the demo lines was dedicated to smart flake sorting, which according to Tomra, is becoming increasingly important. Context: Most plastic production comprises polyolefins and the packaging industry. As recycling quotas become increasingly stringent and the gap between supply and demand widens still further, recycling, and therefore color sorting of polyolefins, is becoming increasingly important. Sorting flakes accurately is key to achieving high-quality recycled materials, alongside washing as well as being a crucial benchmark to determine recyclate quality.

This was amply demonstrated at Mülheim-Kärlich, as PET flakes were sorted. However, before reaching this point, the original products involved, e.g. PET bottles, undergo several steps. Only after pre-sorting, removal of impurities based on color and material type, and subsequent washing process, are the bottles then crushed into flakes.

However, the resulting flakes still contain high levels of other plastics, such as polypropylene from bottle caps, polyvinyl chloride from label remnants, metal particles and other impurities. Consequently, the flakes undergo an intensive cleaning process involving various combinations of metal separators, sieves, air separators, and several steps of hot and cold washing (rinsing and drying). The individual processing steps help minimize impurities as far as possible.

No matter how fractional the impurities or color variations, they still have an adverse impact on the recycled material quality. Accordingly, the goal is to produce PET granules with quality identical to virgin material, by eliminating contaminants. Highly advanced sensor-based technology allows the flakes to be cleaned and any residual contamination removed, achieving purity levels of up to 99 %. The resulting PET granules are perfect for producing new beverage bottles.

An Integrated Approach Saving Time and Money

For Tomra, achieving high levels of purity in recycled materials is contingent on having an integrated approach, in other words, a system combining pre-sorting and flake sorting. The former process allows bottles to be separated, not only from other plastic types but also by the color of the material. Precise pre-sorting is an important step, since it reduces most color and material impurities. When the bottles are crushed and transformed into flakes, the remaining impurities can be easily detected and sorted using highly sensitive sensors. Deploying integrated systems to pre-sort plastics before flake sorting paves the way to fine-tune the sorting performance to match the quality of the input material and impurities. This enables high levels of purity to be achieved while simultaneously boosting overall efficiency.

Plant operators can look forward to numerous improvements – both operationally and financially. Pre-sorting materials efficiently helps ease the need for manual sorting, since sorting technology can remove most contaminants. And this, in turn, allows a reduction in operating costs, or provides scope to allocate personnel resources elsewhere.

Notable Success when Recycling  PET Trays

The second demo for plastic packaging demonstrated scope to separate PET bottles and PET trays. While PET bottles are a prime example of a closed loop system, there remains room for improvement when it comes to PET trays. Although they are also recycled, the quantities are very small. Moreover, instead of creating new trays, they are normally used instead to produce textiles fibers, which is far from a real circular economy.

Progress with the recycling of PET shells depends on all the players in the value chain getting on board: Processors should be sparing with foreign materials in and on the shell to ensure the material remains as recyclable as possible. The recycling companies must remember to selectively sort the trays and the material PET trays from the outset when washing and processing the material.

Also at the beginning of March, Tomra opened a second testing center at its German head office to conduct thorough testing on a wider range of sorting processes.

Fabrizio Radice: “Stricter legal regulations and higher recycling targets have seen the demand to recover valuable materials from waste soar to a record high.“

View of a demolition line: in Mülheim-Kärlich, Tomra has all the equipment as well as sets of machinery on site and can thus adapt the setting individually.

Opening of the test center (left to right): Volker Rehrmann (EVP and Head of Tomra Recycling), Fabrizio Radice (VP and Head of Global Sales and Marketing), Tove Andersen (CEO), Tom Eng (SVP and Head of Tomra Recycling Sorting), André Lehmann (Test Center Manager).