Crushed plastic particles on green gloved hand. Reuse of plastic. polymer beads. Scraps obtained from plastic waste.

Plastics

In the Plastics industry, ensuring reliable material handling is paramount for achieving manufacturing excellence, with challenges arising from poor solids flow behavior, inadequate equipment design, and process development, potentially disrupting goals such as six sigma operation, process automation, lean production, efficiency optimization, and debottlenecking.
Overview

Plastics

Poor flow can cause high volatiles concentration, caked resin, and cross-contamination.

The Plastics industry provides important engineering materials for a myriad of applications, including consumer products (e.g., cellular phones, televisions, electronics), packaging, automotive (e.g., body panels, dashboards, lenses), and foods (e.g., films, containers).

Reliable material handling is vital in the Plastics industry to achieve typical manufacturing practices of six sigma operation, process automation, lean production, efficiency optimization, and debottlenecking. These goals can be upset by poor plastics solids flow behavior and lack of proper material handling equipment design and process development.

Silos of a plastic plant

Silos in a plastics plant.

Extruder feed hopper.

Extruder feed hopper.

Services

Plastics Services

Whether you are handling a new resin with sticky properties, feeding plastics to an extruder or pelletizer, or driving off volatiles in a purge vessel, Jenike & Johanson can help you achieve reliable material flow and increased throughputs.

Daelim Insert Installation

Existing Purge Column being retrofitted to a JPurge™.

Plastics purge column

Plastics purge column

Purge column erection

Erection of a purge column

Challenge

Common Plastics Industry Challenges

The base fluff, resin, pellets, pastille, and granule polymer forms are all susceptible to poor flow.  Flow problems may include blocking, sticking, erratic flow, inconsistent discharge, segregation, inefficient mixing and lack of first-in, first-out vessel discharge sequence.  Process upsets can be due to inadequate devolatilization (purging), tempering, catalyst deactivation, over-heating or drying, and insufficient cooling.  Product quality problems can be the result of material stagnation in storage bins, pellet damage (fines generation), or cross-contamination of batches.  Pneumatic conveying of plastics often leads to formation of snake skins, streamers, and angel hair, all of which can plug downstream equipment.

Spillage of polypropylene resin

Spillage of polypropylene resin

Plastics bag extrusion

Plastic bag blow molding during a site visit.

Materials

Common Materials Handled

Here is a shortened list of some of the most common bulk materials we have successfully handled in the Plastics industry to date. For more materials, please refer to our extended list of materials or ask us about your specific material.

  • Polyethylene (LDPE, HDPE)
  • Polypropylene
  • Nylon
  • Polyester
  • Isothalic, terephthalic acids
  • ABS, rubber crumb
  • Polystyrene (PS)
  • Polyethylene terephthalate (PET)
  • Bio-polymers
  • Acrylic
  • Recycle
  • Antioxidants
  • BTA- Modifier
  • Carbonates
  • Chopped Film
  • Flame retardents
  • Polycarbonate (PC)
  • Pigments, Carbon Black
  • Titanium Dioxide
  • Fibers
  • Flakes
  • Polysulfone Pellets
  • Polyurethane (PU)
  • Polyvinylchloride (PVC)
  • Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP)
  • Rubber
  • Silicas
  • Styrene
  • Surfactants
  • Talcs
Clients

Plastics Industry Clients

Some of the clients who we have successfully provided bulk material engineering services for in the Plastics industry.

  • Exxon Mobil
  • SABIC
  • Chevron Phillips Chemical
  • TECHNIP
  • Huntsman
  • Solvay
  • Borealis
  • INEOS
  • DSM
  • 3M
  • Appryl
  • Armstrong World Industries
  • BP America
  • BP Amoco
  • BP Chemicals, France
  • Carpenter
  • Chevron
  • C.I.L., Canada
  • Daikin America
  • Dow Chemicals
  • DSM
  • DuPont
  • Eastman Chemicals
  • Exxon Chemicals
  • First Brands
  • General Electric Plastics
  • Huntsman Chemicals
  • ICI
  • ISP
  • Kodak
  • Mobil
  • Monsanto
  • Petrobras, Brazil
  • Phoenix Technologies
  • Propilco, Colombia
  • Quantum Chemical
  • Rohm & Haas
  • SABIC, Saudi Arabia
  • Shell Chemicals
  • Stimsonite
  • Texaco
  • Texas Eastman
  • Toray Plastics
  • Union Carbide
Jenike & Johanson engineer
Jenike & Johanson engineer

Do You Need Help With Your Bulk Material Handling?

Reach out to our experienced team of engineers who will provide consulting, testing and engineering services!

Meet Us at Bulk Material Engineering Events

Find out when and where we’ll be presenting our latest findings and trainings.

There are currently no events happening. Stay tuned for the next ones by subscribing below