Moretto at FAKUMA 2023

FAKUMA is one of the most important international events for the plastics processing industry, which this year took place from 17 to 21 October at the Friedrichshafen exhibition centre.

The main themes of the German event, with over 1,600 exhibitors, were about circular economy, sustainability and digitalization addressed from the perspective of processes and products.

Present in Hall B3, Stand 3208, Moretto has showcased more than 40 machines that represent the state of the art of all company’s product lines, from conveying to drying, from dosing to granulation, from temperature control and cooling to storage. A special attention has been dedicated to the extrusion sector where the company was present with dosing equipment, automation and control systems for blown film production.

An edition that fully met the company's expectations, in which visitors from all over the world were able to experience the company's latest innovations and technology.

Among the machines on display, X COMB is the compact dryer suitable for treating small quantities of highly hygroscopic technical polymers. A highly energy-efficient product that is the ideal solution for production-intensive sectors such as medical, optics and electronics.

The OTX (Original Thermal eXchanger) drying hopper, result of ingenuity and sophisticated mathematical simulations, ensures a smooth flow of material, guaranteeing proper drying of each individual granule being processed. The optimisation of the process parameters has enabled to reduce by 40% the hopper size, the technological airflow and the treatment time for the same hourly throughput. The reduction of hopper size has been possible by the energy efficiency of OTX, which improved by 66% at the same production capacity. OTX is not a simple hopper but a concentrate of 7 patents which ensures a perfect execution of the drying process with full control of all working parameters.

Moisture Meter was created for an accurate control of the drying process, thanks for its ability to detect the percentage of residual moisture in the polymer without the need for off-line sampling. Moisture Meter is able to provide the operator in real time with the moisture value of the plastic granule after drying, allowing the operator to fix the situation if the resin has not been properly treated, “saving” the transformation process. Different versions are available depending on the type of installation and the hourly throughput of the polymer to be treated.

Another process that requires great precision to obtain a technical and aesthetic quality product is dosing.

Moretto has a wide and complete range of blenders, including the DGM Gravix 20, the new gravimetric batch dosing unit developed specifically for high-precision dosing of small percentages of material. The 20 series is based on the Gravix series, with a renewed design that improves granule flow.

Raw material procurement is a crucial step in plastics processing. The storage line included SILCONTROL, the system designed and developed to control the loading of plastic granules into storage silos. The material, identified via a special barcode reader, is matched to the correct silo by interrogating the database. Thanks to this procedure, SILCONTROL aims to avoid errors, even human errors, in the material loading phase.

The interconnection of machines and the management of large amount of data generated within the plants prompted Moretto to develop MOWIS, the in-house software platform developed for the control and management of processes within the production plant. A modular and self-configurable tool, usable on-site or remotely, which via OPC UA protocol achieves total connectivity between machines, processes, departments and plants and allows the management of highly complex systems in an optimised and intuitive manner.

Fakuma was the opportunity to present to the international customers the best solutions for blown film extrusion. Thanks to more than 40 years of experience of Contrex, a company of the Moretto Group, in addition to the dosing systems and the efficient Discovery cooling rings, the Navigator 9000 control system was on show. This system is capable of supervising production parameters through a simple, intuitive and user-friendly interface, speeding up the creation of recipes and material changes, reducing start-up time and any production changes.