PET recycling material certified as food-grade

KRONES has been offering a compact-size PET bottle-to-bottle recycling facility for bottlers and converters, designed to produce food-grade PET from used PET material.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging has confirmed that the recyclate is suitable for direct contact with foods and beverages.

The recyclate, examined in a challenge test, complied with the specifications of the American FDA (Food & Drug Administration) in regards to aqueous, acidic and fatty products, for both cold and hot filling processes.

The material also conforms to the German BfR guidelines (Federal Institute for Risk Assessment). The study confirms that the bottle-to-bottle recycling system supplies food-grade recyclate.

The Fraunhofer Institute assessed only the bottle-to-bottle module; the upstream washing module was ignored. This means users have an option for running only the bottle-to-bottle module to handle pre-washed bottles from elsewhere, and produce food-grade recyclate.

The compact-size concept for the PET recycling system has been dimensioned for outputs of 500 kg/h or 1,000 kg/h of recyclate.

At its plant in Flenburg, Krones has opened a pilot plant on a scale of 1 to 10, in which the entire process has been imaged. The pilot plant serves firstly for component development and secondly for providing clients with an option for having their own material examined, after which the process is fine-tuned for the particular application concerned.