Filtration technology for PET recycling

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PolyEthylene Terephthalate, or simply PET, is one of the most recyclable plastics, widely used around the world in many different applications. Light, strong, durable and safe, PET offers a number of advantages while being almost unique among plastics. 

Due to the incredible performance and recyclability of PET, it is one of the most sustainable packaging materials. In fact, it is certified as a safe material for use in direct contact with food throughout the EU, as well as in many other countries, both in virgin and recycled form. Its uses vary from the food, beverage, pharmaceutical and medical, clothing, automotive sectors, surpassing other plastic containers. 70% of water bottles, carbonated soft drinks, fruit juices and dilutable drinks are made of PET.

PET recycling and circular economy

PET is almost infinitely recyclable, and because it can be made into new products, it reduces the need for virgin PET, reduces CO2 emissions, and helps achieve a fully circular economy. Recycled PET products show a reduction of up to 90% in CO2 emissions compared to virgin PET.

International overview of recycled PET

Rising demand and prices for recycled PET are spurring investments in new recycling capacity: Europe has seen a 21% increase in installed capacity for PET recycling, according to a report by Plastics Recyclers Europe, PETCORE Europe, Natural Mineral Water Europe (NMWE) and UNESDA Refrescos Europe: At the same time, global rPET capacity is expected to increase over the next five years.

Pet Recycling

FIMIC has already installed two units (RAS screen changers) in PET recycling lines to work with highly contaminated PET waste streams, that is, they do not come only from hot-washed bottle flakes, such as lumps of waste PET petrochemicals or the production of strapping, waste fibers, as well as PET straps. In these cases, the contamination of the input material was much higher than the typical "ppm" contaminations used for applications to be used in contact with food, reaching levels of up to 5%. The benefits and advantages of continuous pig filtration were significant. Dedicated to different end applications, these screen changers work with excellent performance and high quality results in both cases: as a pre-filter in the first project (applied filtration is 150 or 120 microns on the laser mesh) and as the only filtration step in the second case (the filtration applied is 80 microns in laser mesh). The respective output rates are 2,000 kg/h and 700 kg/h, at very different and sometimes inconsistent iV levels.

Written by:

FIMIC