Separation & Sorting
The Separation & Sorting process is the most important process in PET flakes processing to avoid PVC and other contamination in PET flakes. The Waste bottle received from scrap dealers are separated based on the following:
1. Plastic Type - Identifying number at the base of the bottle.
2. Color - Manual color separation - This also allows us to separate cleaner bottles compared to dirty ones. Of course, less dirty bottles requires a lot less washing.
Removal of Caps and Lables
The caps and Lables are manually removed from each bottles. This step is very critical in ensuring minimum PVC content in PET flakes.
Grinding Unit
The bottles are fed into grinder to turn the bottles into flakes of less than 14 mm size. These flakes include dirt, caps and ring regrind as well as very small quantity of glue that is typically used to stick the lables to the bottles.
Float Sink Tank
Unwashed PET flakes are now fed into float sink tank where the caps and ring is removed. Caps and rings are made with plastic resins that are lighter than water. So, the PET flakes sink in the water tub while the caps and ring will float on water and will be removed.
Washing Unit
WAVE Polymer uses washing machines developed in-house. The flakes washing machine combines friction washing along with tumble washing techniques typically seen in heavy duty laundromat. This washing technology enables us in producing cleanest post consumer flakes. The washing of PET flakes are accomplished with hot water.
Drying
The centrifugal drier is used to remove excess water from PET flakes. In centrifugal drier, water is expelled through the fine holes of the dryer by applying centrifugal forces. Additionally, PET flakes is dried using radiant heater in a dust free enviornment.
Fine Separation/Size Gradation - (Optional)
For certain PET flakes application the size of PET flakes and removal of fine dust is absolutely critical to smooth running of equipment/operation. For these types of applications, we provide custom size of PET flakes per our customer specification. The gradation in size is achieved through dry screening.