There will be an extraordinary range of new auxiliary equipment on display at the show.

WEIMA America has introduced the new ?E-Rotor?

Many granulators on display at the K 2007 show in Dusseldorf last October were big models—150 to 200 hp—to enable higher throughputs or reclaiming larger parts and chunks. For example, Rapid Granulator from Sweden brought out the 600 model, the largest in its “open-hearted” series, which allow fast access to all internal components. It has a 600-mm-diam. rotor, 100 mm more than the next largest size.

Recycling and reclamation are once again hot technologies—this time because of high resin prices.

Topping recycling news at the latest giant K Show in Dusseldorf, Germany, were new compactor technologies for films and foams that can densify plastic waste for recycling and even mold finished parts—not just save space in a landfill.

Recycled Resin Prices Flatten OutNew systems to process mixed plastic waste and to upgrade it with fiberglass or wood flour were prominent at last June’s show in Chicago.

Processors with scrap to grind must have noticed the prominence of screenless granulators with distinctive hooked “S-rotor” blades at the NPE show in Chicago.

While most of the new granulators shown at NPE 2000 last month were beside-the-press models, there was also an accent on larger units with an appetite for tough hunks of large-diameter PVC pipe, bundles of textile fibers, and wads of molten bottle flash. Many are configured for “difficult” resins from engineering types to soft TP elastomers.