Erema system designed for textile recycling applications

Austria-based Erema Group GmbH has introduced the Intarema FibrePro:IV system for polyethylene terephthalate (PET) fiber-to-fiber recycling applications. The technology marks the plastics recycling vendor’s entry into the fibers and textiles sector.

The Intarema FibrePro:IV has been specially developed for PET fiber-to-fiber recycling, Erema says, citing its "especially gentle material preparation and efficient removal of spinning oils.”

The equipment maker says the recycled-content PET (rPET) produced can be reused in proportions of up to 100 percent for the production of very fine fibers.

“The fibers and textiles application is not completely new to us, because our PET recycling machines have already been used in fiber recycling,” says Wolfgang Hermann, business development manager at Erema Group. “However, in order to reuse these recycled fibers in higher-quality applications, a new technological solution was needed.”

Erema says about two-thirds of the total volume of PET globally goes into the production of PET fibers for the textile industry. This, it says, highlights the importance of recycling technology geared toward that sector.

“By combining proven Intarema technology with a new IV optimizer, Erema succeeds in processing shredded PET fiber materials heavily contaminated by spinning oils in such a way that the finest fibers can be produced again from the recycled pellets,” the company adds.

Following extrusion, via polycondensation, the intrinsic viscosity (IV) of the PET melt is increased in the new IV optimizer “to the precise level that is needed for fiber production."

“Including filtration, the output quality that we achieve with this recycling process is so high that ultra-fine fibers of up to 2 decitex (dtex) can be produced using these rPET pellets, with an rPET content of 100 percent,” says Markus Huber-Lindinger, managing director at Erema.

Scrap PET fiber from fabric and textile production processes can therefore be further processed into rPET filament fiber, carpet yarn and staple fiber, according to Erema.

While the focus of its fiber and textiles technology currently is still on PET fiber recycling, Erema says it is “committed to driving forward the recycling of mixed fiber materials from classic textile recycling collection in a next project phase.”

As part of that research, Erema Group has opened its own fiber test center where a cross-company team is working on recycling solutions for fiber-to-fiber applications. “The center also operates a fully equipped and variable industrial-scale recycling plant [that]  is available to customers for trials,” the firm adds.