Twin screw extruder for high purity requirements

The Treffert Group, an acknowledged expert in the production of masterbatches and special-purpose compounds, has once again extended its fleet of machines with one of our twin screw extruders. This time it is a ZSK 32 Mc¹⁸ smart, which was first presented at K 2013 in Düsseldorf, Germany. Equipped with 32 mm diameter screws, this extruder has been put into service at Treffert SAS, the group's facility at Ste-Marie-aux-Chênes in the Lorraine region of France. Heinrich Treffert, CEO of Treffert SAS and managing shareholder of Treffert GmbH & Co. KG, says, “With the new extruder we shall be producing mainly masterbatches and concentrates for laser and other sensitive applications. The focus is on the medical, pharmaceutical and automotive industry.”

The design of the ZSK 32 Mc¹⁸ smart is extremely ergonomic. The axes of the screw shafts are positioned at a height of only 800 mm from the floor, thus making the extruder with its completely enclosed base frame readily accessible for maintenance and for easy cleaning. All connections, water supply system and manifold are integrated into the base frame and provide smooth surfaces of the machine enclosures. The extruder ideally meets the demands that Treffert makes on its machines for the production of materials destined for the manufacture of medical products. Besides the extruder itself, we have also supplied the complete pelletizing system: the waterbath, the strand suction device, the strand pelletizer and the pellet screener all come from Coperion Pelletizing Technology.

Operating under the slogan “Colour follows function”, the Treffert Group has during the past several years been concentrating on the production of masterbatches and compounds for the manufacture of medical products and optical materials destined for highly demanding applications. Compared with the classical methods of masterbatch manufacture, these elevated demands have also generated more demanding requirements on the production systems themselves. High product purity and the avoidance of every possible kind of contamination during production now take absolute priority. It was these requirements in particular that were the guiding principle for the development of the new ZSK 32 Mc¹⁸ smart. Both our expertise and the practical experience of Treffert as a long-standing user of ZSK technology went into the development of the ZSK 32 Mc¹⁸ smart.

“One of the important features of Coperion's new twin screw extruder”, says Heinrich Treffert, “is the ease and reliability with which it can be cleaned. It meets the essential demands we make on all machines used for the manufacture of materials for sensitive applications. The new twin screw extruder also permits rapid changeover from one batch to another and enables us to respond to customer's wishes within the entire Treffert Group more quickly and flexibly than before.”