Recycling : A challenging task simply shredded

For a project in Italy, ANDRITZ Recycling has proved in more ways than one that high speed does not necessarily mean poorer quality. Within just six months, the Austrian technology group developed a new rotor design for Energie AG Südtirol Umwelt Service S.r.l. to be used in a high-throughput, single-shaft shredder. The Final Acceptance Certificate was issued less than a week after the new machine was installed.

“A prosperous New Year!” This wasn’t just a polite greeting at Energie AG Südtirol at the start of 2022 – by the end of January it was a joyful statement of fact. That was when a new shredder went into operation at the company’s facility in the town of Neumarkt, South Tyrol – and Hans Glawischnig, President of the company’s Supervisory Board, together with Andrea Bertorelle, Manager of the RDF line, had been expecting a lot from this machine. It was soon clear that all their expectations had been met.

The new ANDRITZ ADuro P-3000F shredder is a very robust, slow-speed, single-shaft shredder that produces up to 10 tons of RDF per hour from pre-sorted, pre-consumer plastic waste – tripling the capacity of the shredder it was replacing. The challenge: Even materials that are difficult to shred, such as diapers, fleece, and nonwoven material, must be reduced to a particle size of less than 40 millimeters in only one shredder stage so that they can be used as fuel in the main burner of the cement works to which the RDF was to be delivered.

What still fascinates the RDF plant manager Andrea Bertorelle – himself an industrial technology and mechanical engineer – around six months later: “The plant’s stability and easy maintenance, the quality of the final product, and finally the throughput achieved – saving us an entire work shift – are what really convinced us. The price-performance ratio is excellent, as is the service quality provided by ANDRITZ. The task set was challenging, but this challenge was very quickly met. Even the accessibility for maintenance work and the new, remote maintenance system were a huge bonus,” he says with enormous satisfaction. “With the new shredder, we have seen enhancements in all areas – in terms of input and output material, logistics and material flow. Everything has improved significantly,” Andrea Bertorelle adds.

The ADuro P-3000F shredder is part of the ADuro shredder product line launched by ANDRITZ in 2020 and has a new rotor design that was specially developed for high capacities and materials that are difficult to shred. The rotor knives are arranged in a special, triple-row V shape for single-stage shredding – as derived from a pre-shredding configuration that proved to be particularly robust. The development work took only six months, during which the ANDRITZ Recycling engineers were able to put all their knowhow to the test, incorporating the results of trials and also using numerical simulations. Energie AG Südtirol is part of Energie AG Oberösterreich and hence one of 28 locations in Austria and South Tyrol specialized in collecting, transporting, processing, recycling, and disposing of various types of waste for private customers, companies and local authorities.

“Collaboration with ANDRITZ Recycling was exemplary. We were able to run tests at another company where an ANDRITZ shredder is operating before the project had even started,” Glawischnig recalls. And several tons of input material were delivered there especially for this purpose. The experience gained during the tests then contributed towards development of the new ADuro P-3000F shredder. “ANDRITZ involved us at all times and proved to be a good partner,” the plant manager underlines. “The task of dealing with the input material, particularly the nonwoven material, and the high throughput at a particle size of less than 40 millimeters for a single-stage solution was a challenge that we really wanted to tackle,” Thomas Gemeiner, Director of Global Product Management and After Sales at ANDRITZ Recycling, proudly adds.

The machine was built at the ANDRITZ factory in Graz, Austria – and then everything had to proceed very quickly. “We had a short time slot in mid-January to install the machine in South Tyrol,” Thomas Gemeiner says, recalling a festive season that was somewhat less peaceful than usual. “During start-up, everything went like clockwork thanks to the strong team headed by Simone Lehner, Product Manager for the ADuro P. The machine came up to our expectations right from the beginning. Everything fitted perfectly, so Energie AG Südtirol gave us the Final Acceptance Certificate within the week!”

But although everything is running smoothly and stably, this doesn’t mean, of course, that development of the shredder has come to an end. “We are in close contact with Andrea Bertorelle and pay very close attention when he reports on what has been happening,” says Gemeiner. Energie AG Südtirol constantly analyzes the quality of the end product, while ANDRITZ Recycling continuously evaluates the production data with the aid of innovative IIoT functions and is working on turning a few more screws to further optimize the throughput. That’s how the know-how is being expanded, and perhaps it will also benefit Energie AG Südtirol again in the future. How so? “For the moment, the production volume is sufficient. But when we win more customers, we’ll need more material – and more machines,” says Glawischnig, showing that he wants more – from ANDRITZ.

Energie AG Südtirol was founded in 2001 and is part of Energie AG Oberösterreich, with headquarters in Linz, Austria. The company is specialized in the collection and disposal of waste and operates in Neumarkt near Bolzano, Italy, as one of 28 disposal plants located in Italy and Austria.

For more information on ANDRITZ’ recycling technologies, please contact recycling@andritz.com or visit www.andritz.com/recycling