The new technical center at the company also includes more than 15 injection molding machines spanning the clamping range of 35 - 40,000 tons. Customers can visit the new TechCenter during the KraussMaffei Competence Forum this week (May 19) in Munich.

In Feldkirchen, Austria, officials at plastics recycling machinery manufacturer NGR says the company celebrated record sales in its 2010/11 fiscal year, which ended last month. This contrasts sharply to the 2009/10FY, the toughest in the company's history, they say, during which sales revenue fell by 20% (though the company was still profitable, they add).

For the 2010/11 financial year, the company had a record order intake of more than €22 million. Josef Hochreiter, the company CEO, is also optimistic about the future, saying,  "The prerequisites for planned growth are in place."

Meanwhile, plastics reprocessing machinery manufacturer Herbold Meckesheim has introduced a new vertical pulverizer, which could prove of interest to processors of recycling rigid PVC and to rotomolders, both of whom regularly process powders.

The vertical configuration of the rotor shaft and the directly flanged drive give this pulverizer an unorthodox design. The vertical rotor configuration allows for a compact design, says the company, and also to optimized pulverization of the powder. A full-scale machine is available for tests with customer's original material in the Herbold technical laboratory.

In Herbold's machine, two grooved grinding discs work opposite to each other. The shape of the grooves is responsible for the fineness and the throughput of the end product. With this disc design, a greater fineness and a higher throughput can be achieved, says the manufacturer; refeeding of coarse material either is not necessary, or is easier to do than with conventional pulverizers. 

The first machine with this new design that is available is the model PU 650 with a disc diameter of 650 mm (26"), equipped with a 75 kW (100 HP) or 90 kW (125 HP) drive motor. With rotomolding-grade polyethylene, throughput is possible for up to 800 kg/hr (1700 lbs/hr) and with rigid PVC, throughput of up to 1200 kg/hr (2800 lbs/hr) can be achieved.