Steinbeis Polyvert – Recycling Plastics at Their Best
For over 30 years, Steinbeis Polyvert GmbH (formerly Kruschitz GmbH) has been dedicated to delivering the perfect solutions for recycling valuable secondary raw materials. Founded in 1956 with production facilities in Austria and Germany, Steinbeis Polyvert is one of Europe's leading plastic recyclers. Our recycling solutions for PET, HDPE, and PP plastics are continuously refined and optimized.
They produce top-quality plastic granules that excel in a wide range of product applications. With their extensive international network and years of expertise in plastic recycling, Steinbeis Polyvert offers an optimal product portfolio to their clients.
The primary goal is to sustainably recycle diverse material streams to deliver the highest-quality recyclates. This commitment enhances the circular economy, conserves resources, and contributes to environmental protection.
The Challenge: Sorting Diverse Materials
If you need to sort a wide variety of materials, you require flexible, highly precise sorting technology tailored to both upstream and downstream processes. Sesotec was involved from the very start in planning the new sorting line. After extensive sorting trials with various material compositions at the Sesotec Technical Center in Schönberg, Bavaria, the sorting processes were collaboratively developed and successfully implemented.
The Solution: Sorting and Analysis Systems by Sesotec
At Steinbeis Polyvert, material processing kicks off with bale breaking. Following the separation of ferrous metals, air classification, and ballistic separation, the material is sorted into pure fractions.
The latest Sesotec sorting systems, VARISORT+ UNITY, handle both the preliminary sorting and the final cleaning of the material. They also recover materials from previously generated reject fractions.
Depending on the incoming material, different sorting programs are selected, optimized during commissioning. A standout feature is the Sesotec VARISORT+ FLEX bridge solution, which enables online analysis of materials from prior processes. This runs concurrently with the sorting program, providing real-time insights into the material's composition and color. With the statistical process data generated, you can swiftly adapt to changes in incoming material composition to maximize the efficiency of the sorting program.
The fractions obtained from preliminary sorting are then ground and washed. The flakes proceed through additional separation stages to the final optical sorting stage, where Sesotec FLAKE PURIFIER+ systems are employed. These systems remove off-colors, foreign plastics, and residual metals from the material stream, ultimately yielding pure PP and HDPE flakes.
To meet the high-quality standards of processors, Steinbeis Polyvert uses the Sesotec FLAKE SCAN analysis system before extrusion and at other sorting stages. This allows for rapid quality assessment of plastic flakes within minutes. Quick and reliable decisions about material usability can be made swiftly. Material samples are precisely analyzed for foreign plastics, off-colors, and metals, with results delivered in minutes.
In the final step, the plastic flakes are extruded on-site and processed into plastic granulate. This ultra-pure recycled granulate is used by plastic processing companies to produce new products. The recycling loop is complete.
Customer Benefits: Meeting the Highest Quality Standards
At Steinbeis Polyvert's Austrian site, we're pioneering the use of the latest Sesotec multi-sensor sorting systems integrated with artificial intelligence (AI). These VARISORT+ UNITY systems with measuring bridges bring cutting-edge technology combined with AI, elevating sorting capabilities to a whole new level.
Sesotec's AI-powered sorting systems make it possible to detect black objects on black conveyor belts and distinguish objects that traditional color evaluation struggles to differentiate from other materials.
Achieve outstanding results with the three-chute device paired with an ultra-fine nozzle grid. This setup allows sorting into three material fractions on a single sorting unit, even with particularly small material grain sizes.
André Aßmann, Managing Director of Steinbeis PolyVert GmbH: “With Sesotec, we have a reliable technology partner that supports our recycling processes with flexible and precise sorting and analysis systems, meeting the highest quality standards of our customers.”
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