Equipment Report

Voith Turbo, Danieli Centro Recycling sign distribution agreement

Danieli Centro Recycling, an Italian manufacturer of recycling machinery with North American operations in Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania, will distribute products and services, including quick-time delivery universal joint drive shafts (u-joint shafts), hydrodynamic couplings, SafeSet couplings and highly flexible couplings, to shredder operators for Voith Turbo Inc., a provider of drive solutions, systems and comprehensive services with U.S. headquarters in York, Pennsylvania.

“Through our partnership with Danieli, we’re improving the operator’s experience by providing easy access to superior drive components from Voith,” says Kyle Kluttz, vice president, NBS Mining and Metals Americas, Voith Turbo Inc. “Single sourcing offers many benefits, including enhanced administrative efficiency and lower inventory costs.”

With Voith quick-time delivery, North American delivery times have been decreased from months to weeks, the company says. Voith’s warehouse in York stocks components for drive shafts in the 198-to-550-millimeter-diameter range.

Voith says its u-joint shafts feature a modular design, a universal fit and maximized torque capacities that are as much as 20 percent higher than equal-sized competitor products.

Voith also provides a range of parts and driveline solutions, including connection and torsionally flexible couplings, SafeSet torque limiters and driveline torque monitoring systems.

Everson Cremonese, Americas sales director, Danieli Centro Recycling, says, “Thanks to Voith products, Danieli shredders have never experienced catastrophic failures with consequent expensive repairs and downtime.”

More information is available at http://voith.com and at www.danieli-centro-recycling.com.

Machinex debuts robotic sorter

Machinex, Plessisville, Quebec, debuted SamurAI, its sorting robot, at WasteExpo 2018 in April in Las Vegas. The company also is displaying the technology at IFAT in Munich in May.

Featuring a robot with four articulations, this machine employs artificial intelligence (AI) from AMP Robotics, Colorado, and robotic hardware from Machinex, designed to ensure complete system integration. The AI operates according to a predetermined task hierarchy to maximize financial return while continually improving and learning from its experience to assure maximum recognition efficiency, Machinex states.

AMP Robotics is well-represented within the North American market, Machinex says, and its AI technology is successfully operating in several material recovery facilities (MRFs).

Matanya Horowitz, CEO of AMP Robotics, says, “With Machinex we not only expand our market reach but [also] gain a truly collaborative and deeply experienced partner who shares our vision of the potential of artificial intelligence in the recycling industry.”

Compared with a human sorter who averages 35 picks per minute, the SamurAI averages 70 picks per minute and has been designed to accommodate conveyor widths of up to 48 inches while offering a modular design for multiple robot configurations, Machinex indicates. This robotic solution is designed to reduce MRF operators’ reliance on manual labor and ongoing operating costs while improving overall system performance.

Installation of the first two SamurAI units began in May 2018 at locations in the U.S. and Canada, with Machinex adding that additional sales are being finalized with customers from North America and Europe.

Visit www.machinextechnologies.com for more information.

Fuchs expands North American distribution network

West Virginia-based Leslie Equipment Co. and W.I. Clark Co., headquartered in Wallingford, Connecticut, have been appointed distributors for Terex’s Fuchs brand in North America.

With its headquarters and five locations in West Virginia, Leslie Equipment will sell and service Fuchs equipment throughout the entire state, while W.I. Clark will support Fuchs owners in Connecticut and Rhode Island as well as in Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan, Ulster and Westchester counties in southeastern New York state.

Leslie Equipment first opened its doors in West Virginia supplying John Deere Construction and Forestry equipment. Now, more than 50 years later, the company has eight different locations throughout West Virginia and nearby states, employing more than 200 people. The company’s achievements have been recognized by John Deere and various vendors with numerous awards for outstanding sales, Fuchs indicates.

Leslie Equipment President and Owner John Leslie says, “We feel that there is a demand in our region for the products offered [by Fuchs], and that we’ll have a successful partnership serving our customer base.”

Founded in 1925, W.I. Clark is a fourth-generation family business offering sales, service, parts and rentals, according to Fuchs. The company represents a diversified group of manufacturers with products for general construction, landscaping, highways and scrap and recycling.

Rick Parks, vice president and sales manager of W.I. Clark, says, “We are excited to represent the leader in material handlers for the scrap and recycling industries.”

Fuchs is based in Bad Schönborn, Germany, while Terex Corp. is based in Westport, Connecticut.

More information is available at www.lec1.com, www.wiclark.com and www.terex-fuchs.com/en.html.

CarbonLite’s Dallas plant features Amut equipment

Los Angeles-based CarbonLite opened its second recycling facility in September 2017 in Dallas. The plant features a washing line supplied by Italy-based Amut Group capable of producing more than 12,000 pounds per hour of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) flake from postconsumer bales sourced from material recovery facilities (MRFs). It is the second plant of this size that Amut has installed in the U.S. The 250,000-square-foot bottle-to-bottle recycling plant will process more than 100 million pounds (50,000 tons) of plastic bottles annually.

CarbonLite’s Dallas facility doubles the company’s annual capacity for food-contact-grade recycled PET.

Regarding the Amut equipment, Leon Farahnick, CarbonLite president, says, “I’m very satisfied with quality, punctuality and technology.”

Anthony Georges, president of Amut North America, says the company integrated its delabeler and the wet whole bottle prewash for CarbonLite.

Georges says Amut’s double-stage process first uses dry cleaning to detach most of the shrink-sleeve labels, while the second unit—a wet delabeler—prewashes the whole bottles to reduce wear on the grinder’s blades.

The bottles stay intact through these two machines, helping to improve the efficiency of the automatic sorting equipment that follows, so the non-PET and colored PET bottles can be removed more easily from the clear PET bottle stream, Amut indicates.

The project also includes a wet grinding system to turn bottles into flakes, two patented flake friction washers and two sink-float separation machines, which can capture polyolefin caps for recycling.

Amut states the process is engineered to increase clear PET flake quality.

More information is available at www.carbonliterecycling.com and at www.amutgroup.com.