Disassembled agglomerator. Agglomerators

The second stage in the processing of film waste polymers is agglomeration. Why the second one - because, as a rule, the first stage is preliminary grinding. Film waste of any size must not be thrown into the agglomerator. For most agglomerators, with the exception of powerful models (productivity from 250 kg/hour and above), preliminary preparation of the film is required: either crushing in a crusher, or manually cutting into pieces up to 500-1000 mm, which will later be further crushed by the agglomerator itself and converted by increasing the temperature in the agglomerate.

FAQ

What can an agglomerator do?
- Process waste film, burlap or fiber into agglomerate.

What is an agglomerate?
- Pieces of film pre-crushed by agglomerator knives, sintered into balls irregular shape due to thermal effects. Depending on the purity and size, it can be used immediately in the further production of films or products or sent for granulation.

What kind of film waste can the agglomerator process?
- Film waste is different: High Density Polyethylene (LDPE), Polyethylene Low Pressure(HDPE), Polypropylene, Stretch (special grade of LDPE with glue), Polyamide (PA).
There are also waste polypropylene woven bags and fibers (PET). They can also be processed in an agglomerator.
ATTENTION! Not all agglomerators are designed to process all of the above types of film waste! In practice, it often happens that the type of waste supplied may change, and the agglomerator is not designed to process it. Therefore, our designers developed New episode the most universal agglomerators of the AGM series, presented below. Moreover, the design is constantly being improved, as we always encourage our customers to help us identify shortcomings and modernize the models we produce.

Where is the resulting agglomerate used?
- Depending on its purity: In the further production of film or goes to the production of products obtained by injection molding.

What is a washing agglomerator?
- Agglomerator operating in two modes: either washing or agglomeration.
A washing agglomerator is not the most effective solution; it is better to install a separate sink. When using the washing mode of the agglomerator, productivity drops by 2-3 times. Therefore, in principle, we do not produce washing agglomerators. There is no point in complicating the design.

Should the agglomerator barrel be made of stainless steel?
- During daily (weekly) work on the agglomerator, the inner surface of the barrel is polished to a shine. Even on a barrel made of ferrous metal, scale does not form. If the agglomerator has long downtime, you can take a stainless steel barrel. However, in our opinion, this is also not the most effective solution. In 1-2 runs of the material, all the scale is removed by itself, there is no point in paying a lot of money for stainless steel. But you can’t forbid living beautifully either - as an option we offer the interior of the barrel made of stainless steel.

PURPOSE OF AGGLOMERATORS ( general information)

AGGLOMERATOR designed for grinding, washing, agglomerating, pre-drying secondary film waste of polymeric materials, for example, used agricultural film, bags (including wicker), as well as technological film waste.

AGGLOMERATION is a process of sintering crushed pieces of film into small irregularly shaped balls. Depending on the skill of the agglomerator operator and the AGGLOMERATOR the size of the resulting agglomerate varies from 0.5mm to 5.0mm in diameter. As a rule, large agglomerates are obtained on agglomerators with high productivity (over 200 kg/hour). The finer the resulting agglomerate, the more applicable it is as a secondary raw material without an additional granulation step.

AGGLOMERATOR is a device of periodic action and can be used both for carrying out a full processing cycle, including all of the above stages, and for individual stages: for example, only agglomeration or only drying of the material. In combination, for example, with pre-shredding in a crusher, productivity AGGLOMERATOR rises. The resulting agglomerate is either sold as raw material ready for use in extrusion lines or injection molding machines, or it is granulated to remove dust and small foreign particles, which increases the cost of raw materials.
To make the selection task as specific as possible AGGLOMERATOR, You need to answer the following questions:

We manufacture and supply equipment for plastic waste processing (recycling). Thank you for choosing us. We hope your choice will be an easy and effective decision.

An agglomerator is a universal equipment used in the processing of polymer waste to obtain a commercial product - agglomerate. It is also used for crushing thin-walled plastic products, polypropylene burlap and films, for drying wet material before casting or extrusion, for simple washing of film waste, and as a high-speed mixer.

When choosing an agglomerator for polyethylene, you should initially decide on its desired performance and the main source material. Despite a large number of manufacturers of such equipment, the design and operating principle of the agglomerator remain unchanged. Structurally, the agglomerator consists of the following components: a frame, a bearing unit with an installed tool, an electric motor with a belt tension device, a working body with a loading window and elements for unloading the finished material, and a control panel.

7 points that you should pay attention to when choosing an agglomerator.

Agglomerator model	APR- 22U	APR-	APR- 30M	APR-	APR-	APR-	APR- 30x2	APR- 37x2	APR- 37x2M	APR- 45x2	APR- 55x2	1.price, catches supplies
Price, thousand rubles
Delivery time, p/d.
Delivery

Selection of equipment for polyethylene processing

Despite the apparent simplicity of the agglomerator, you need to pay attention to the following factors when choosing a model:

If guides with knives are installed on the motor shaft, you must be aware that the motor is not designed for shock loads and elevated temperature. The service life of such an engine is from six months to a year. Therefore, you should not pay attention to the low price of such agglomerators;

When the bearings are idling, their temperature should be within 35-45 0 C. During operating mode, the temperature in the working chamber reaches more than 100 0 C and is transmitted along the shaft to the bearing assembly. While this temperature is not dangerous for the bearing, it is critical for the seals. Forced cooling of the bearing assembly is necessary, especially if it is mounted with a flange at the bottom of the working chamber. It is also necessary to pay attention to the presence of control of lubricants. The absence or insufficient amount of lubrication leads to bearing failure, and in some cases, to loss of the shaft and the bearing assembly itself. Excessive grease leads to heating of the bearings;

The bearing assembly must be protected from contact with raw materials, water, and abrasive materials contained in the raw materials used, especially when working with scrap. In the absence of such protection, the bearing seal does not work for long;

The shape of the knives affects the performance of the agglomerator. Knives with bevels allow the use of less powerful engines, but special tools are required to sharpen them; they should be sharpened more often; in addition, the agglomeration time increases. Rectangular knives are preferable: they allow you to change the cutting surface four times without sharpening; the maximum transfer of electric motor power to heat the agglomerated mass is also carried out;

The V-belt drive is designed to transmit torque from the engine to the equipment shaft. If you choose the wrong pulley diameter, cross-section and number of belts, you will need to frequently adjust the tension force of the belts and replace them. It is preferable if the belts are installed narrow rather than normal section, and even better if there are poly V-belts;

It is better to choose a case that is hinged or removable. Ask to show the process of replacing knives. If the body is welded to the frame, the operator has to either “dive” into the barrel, or use special devices to remove the guides from the shaft, which, in turn, does not allow the traverse to fit tightly onto the shaft. One more point: the author does not know of a single operator who has never melted material in the working chamber; this occurs either due to inattention or due to insufficient work experience. In this case, the operator has only a few minutes to remove the stuck polymer. If the mass has time to cool, then removing it will require the use of a mechanic’s tool and a lot of time;

Detergent or regular agglomerator? It's your choice. Washing is carried out by supplying water to the working chamber while crushing the material; water is drained through drainage holes made on the damper, body or bottom of the agglomerator. True, this also washes out crushed material, which can be separated in a settling bath. This method It removes dust well, but poorly against sand. Processing time increases several times. Pay attention to protecting the bearings from water; Domestic manufacturers often neglect this factor.

Try to find and talk to any disinterested waste recycler: he will definitely tell you what problems he faces.
When indicating performance parameters in the equipment passport, manufacturing companies, as a rule, are disingenuous; the indicated productivity can be achieved by performing several cookings on pre-prepared raw materials.
Bring with you 200-300 kilograms of the raw materials you plan to work with. By running it through a preheated agglomerator, you will find out its real performance.

In order for the material to be conveniently transported and used for the production of products, the flakes must be processed into denser forms, such as agglomerate or granulate.

For this, the simplest equipment can be used - an agglomerator, which is a metal barrel with a rotating knife installed in the lower part. If you type the word Agglomerator in Yandex, then in 100% of the answers the links will be to such simple designs, differing in the number and power of drives and the size of the barrel.
It works this way: the material is manually loaded into the barrel. A rotating knife chops the film, while it heats up both due to friction and due to the release of energy during chopping. The operator, observing the state of the material, selects the moment when the temperature is close to the melting point and splashes a small amount of water. A thermal shock occurs, as a result of which the mass in the agglomerator is broken into more or less even lumps, which are discharged through a hole in the bottom of the barrel. The advantage of an agglomerator of this design is that it is accessible even to novice entrepreneurs. Prices from 120 thousand rubles. Actually, this is where the advantages begin and end.
The production process may look like this photo.

Manufacturers polymer products are reluctant to buy agglomerate of such brewing and only for the most low prices, no more than 20 rubles per kg. The reason is that it is not consistent in quality. Much depends on how the operator evaluates right moment for splashing water, a lot of fine dust or, conversely, large lumps of material often appear.
Any inclusions that might be in the material go into the agglomerate, since there is no filtration here. In addition, excessive cutting of the material sometimes contributes to its degradation and cross-linking. ( In simple words cross-linking is when you cut a polyethylene molecule, two active ends, radicals, were formed, which closed on neighboring molecules, thus forming bonds between them, this is not good, but I think I’ll write more about this in a separate post about the degradation of polyethylene during processing)

You can obtain a higher quality agglomerate by using agglomerators or permanent plastic compactors, such as, for example, an agglomerator from a German company.

The German agglomerator has a completely different principle for compacting flakes.
It is shown schematically in the figure below.
The main working element is a rotor 3 with knives 2, which rotates inside a cylindrical matrix 1. The material is fed into the matrix and is heated by friction against the rotor and knives. The matrix has holes into which the material is squeezed out, just as meat is squeezed out of a meat grinder with sausages. At the same time, rotating knives 1 constantly cut off these sausages, which then go to an additional crusher. The dust is captured and sent to the beginning of the process so that the finished product is more or less the same size, which is important for its subsequent processing.

Since in finished products only what passes through the holes of the matrix passes, then there is a certain filtration element in this case, that is, stones and pieces of wood will not pass into the finished product, although their appearance will not be useful for the agglomerator, so in any case they must be removed before .

The advantage of such agglomerates is that the costs of their acquisition and operation are lower than granulators of comparable capacity, while the agglomeration problems that I wrote about above are almost solved.
True, as soon as you use the word “sinter”, your potential buyer is skeptical about quality and is waiting for an offer at a low price.

A fundamental way to expand the sales market and increase the profitability of polyethylene processing is to use advanced granulator designs, which I will write about next time.

Direct your question regarding the choice of agglomerators to email [email protected] and receive an answer within twelve hours or write a question in the comments.

The production of agglomerate is the first production stage in the processing of recycled plastic. Of course, to reduce large waste to a fraction acceptable for grinding in an agglomerator, preliminary crushing in industrial shredders or crushers. However, many enterprises are focusing on processing more accessible materials that do not require preliminary preparation.

Application of agglomerator

The agglomerator is the equipment of the first processing line plastic waste- stretch films, polypropylene, polystyrene, as well as low and low polyethylene high pressure and other types of polymers. The machine allows you to obtain an output product - an agglomerate - that is ready for further use or sale.
In addition to grinding raw materials, technological process allows additional drying of the material during the agglomeration process, however, the use of raw material reduces the productivity of the equipment. For this reason, it is recommended to use more efficient solutions for pre-washing.

Production of plastic agglomerate

The crushing of plastic in the agglomerator occurs due to the rapid rotation of movable knives. The shape and sharpening angle of knives can have a significant impact on the efficiency of working with various types waste. Because due to the friction of the crushed mass against the agglomerator body and the surface of the moving and stationary knives, the material is heated. A homogeneous heated mass cools sharply and, under the action of chopping knives, rolls into separate uneven balls various shapes, ranging in size from 0.5 to 5 mm depending on the feedstock. The resulting agglomerate can be used directly in injection molding machines or sent for granulation.

AGL series agglomerators

We produce agglomerators of various modifications for use as first-line machines for processing plastic waste and producing agglomerate. Based on your request, we will select the necessary equipment modification or manufacture any agglomerator to order according to technical specifications.

Technical characteristics of the agglomerator AGL-02

Overall dimensions, LxWxH, mm	1200 x 550 x 1250
Weight, kg, no more	600
Recyclable material	LDPE, HDPE, PET, stretch film, polypropylene, polystyrene and other types of polymers
Number of rotor knives, pcs.	6
Productivity, kg/h: - at LDPE processing - when processing HDPE, PP, stretch - in agglomeration mode - in crushing mode	120 100 up to 50/150 200
Case volume, l	200
Type of shell	removable
Sinter unloading window size, mm	100x100
Electric motor power, kW	30