SITRAPLAS, East Westphalian compounder for innovative engineering plastics solutions, is going on the offensive. With an investment of around one million euros in new machines and systems, the company is increasing its production capacity at its headquarters in Bünde. In addition, further expertise is being built up in the state-of-the-art technical center. The aim is to be able to meet customer requirements even more flexibly and to increase the sustainability of the processes.

Laboratory extruder in the pilot plant

SITRAPLAS, for example, is expanding its performance in the pilot plant with a ZSK26Mc18 laboratory extruder from Coperion. The configuration of the extruder complements the machinery with additional process options and offers proven plant flexibility for efficient production. Thanks to the new machine, SITRAPLAS can now develop innovative technical compounds even faster with a total of three extruders.

Gentle mixing of PMMA compounds

In order to guarantee the highest possible batch reliability, SITRAPLAS homogenizes all production batches before delivery. The newly installed Kreyenborg MBM mixer was specially developed for sensitive bulk materials and is thus ideal for this task. After all, gentle homogenization is enormously important especially in the production of PMMA compounds. Conventional mixing systems can mechanically stress the granulate and thus generate an increased dust content, which leads to a significant reduction in the quality of transparent compounds.

Dosing technology from Brabender

Among other things, SITRAPLAS is known as a manufacturer of very tightly toleranced translucent compounds with different color shades. The company is investing in the latest dosing technology from Brabender to achieve even greater performance in this segment. An existing system has been supplemented with a DDSR40 2.0 twin screw feeder. The high standard for optimum fine dosing of additives can thus be increased even further. The device also allows the addition of bulk materials that are difficult to handle, with particular advantages for transparent compounds.
In addition, SITRAPLAS has completely equipped the dosing system of another production plant with Brabender dosing devices of the new generation 2.0, which has a positive effect on flexibility, cleanliness and changeover times. The loss-in-weight feeders ensure optimized regrind dosing and increase the formulation options for recompounds. The Green Compound product group from SITRAPLAS already offers products of the highest quality, comparable to the properties of virgin material.

Are you interested in this or another of our high-performance plastic compounds? We will be happy to advise you. Contact us now!

More energy efficiency in material handling

For the planning of the investments, the company uses the data of the energy management system "econ". In fact, the entire product process at SITRAPLAS is digitally connected and is also monitored by econ with regard to energy efficiency. In line with this, SITRAPLAS has replaced the vacuum pumps of the automatic material conveying system with particularly energy-efficient and quiet devices in a further investment step.

"With our investments in machines and systems at the Bünde site, we can respond even more flexibly to customer requirements and increase sustainability at the same time. Our production is already CO2-neutral today. We are currently working on calculating the carbon footprint of our products according to the cradle-to-gate principle in order to create maximum transparency in this way," says Tim Hencken, owner and Managing Director of SITRAPLAS, giving an outlook on further activities.