K Trade Fair 2022: technotrans presents innovative thermal management solutions for the plastics industry

"This year’s K Trade Fair is a special occasion for us: First of all, we will present powerful, innovative solutions for all three focus topics of the trade fair. In addition, it is the first K Trade Fair for gwk and Reisner after the two companies have merged under the technotrans umbrella brand, which is something that we want to make even better known throughout the market," says Nicolai Küls, Managing Director of technotrans solutions GmbH in Meinerzhagen. With particularly energy-efficient temperature control systems, the intelligent use of waste heat and refrigeration units with a higher level of environmental friendliness, technotrans offers new solutions for the sustainable processing of plastics and the associated upcycling and recycling concepts.

Temperature control circuits for the upcycling of household waste

The term "circular economy" concerns not only the reuse of important raw materials, but also the extensive reuse of the energy used. technotrans has developed a corresponding cooling concept with waste heat utilisation. It will be used for the conversion of household waste at the first European production site of the Israeli company UBQ Materials. The resulting material is fully recyclable and, therefore, the most climate-friendly thermoplastic currently available on the market. During this ground-breaking upcycling process, a multi-stage high-temperature heat pump, which has been realised by technotrans in cooperation with SPH Sustainable Process Heat GmbH, increases the temperature of the waste heat produced during the cooling process to up to 150 °C. This heat is then used for drying the shredded particles so that no additional fossil fuel is required.

Protecting the climate with thermal management systems which have a particularly high level of sustainability

"For a sustainable future, it is necessary to completely rethink the previous concepts and to develop new sustainable plastics-processing technologies," explains Nicolai Küls. technotrans will present several innovations in this area at the K Trade Fair. These innovations include: A new chiller series with a cooling output of up to 1,500 kW and refrigeration circuits for flexible use. These circuits are either water-cooled or air-cooled, depending on which cooling concept can provide the highest level of energy efficiency in any given situation. Intelligent interconnections of different system components lead to low energy costs and, therefore, to the greatest possible minimisation of the related CO₂ emissions. At the trade fair, technotrans will also present refrigeration units with propane as an environmentally friendly refrigerant.

In addition, the company will showcase a redesigned version of the control-integrated water distribution system itd evo and an upgraded version of the eco.line series of temperature control units. "These units with their speed-controlled pump systems are among the most energy-efficient units on the market. Their relatively short delivery times are an additional benefit. We are very proud of our contribution to climate protection, as we enable energy consumption reductions that can be implemented rather quickly with our technologies," says Nicolai Küls.

Process data monitoring with artificial intelligence

The focus topic "digital transformation" is characterised by the advantages offered by new AI-based process data monitoring systems for injection moulding machines and temperature control units, which technotrans will showcase live at its trade fair stand. The secure plug&play cloud solution with web-based software enables process monitoring, intelligent process control and cross-site machine control directly via the cloud.

"The focus topics of the K Trade Fair are clearly intertwined. The circular economy, climate protection and digitalisation concepts do not cause any conflicting goals. Instead, they can actually lead to synergies following their implementation. This also applies to our technological innovations that we present live at our trade fair stand for the visitors," says Nicolai Küls.