Founded in late 2009, the newest member of the Hamburg-based Feddersen Group ventured its very first steps at the Fakuma exhibition; even so, there was quite a lot for exhibition visitors to take in. The compounding extruder FED 52 MTS (Multi Task Standard) with a processing length of 32 L/D was the centrepiece of the exhibition booth and thus the main attraction for the visitors.

“Our FED compounder unites design and function”, explains Ralph Körtgen, Account Manager at FEDDEM. “In 2010 we completely revised our machine concept, integrating a number of new technical options in addition to a brand new look”.

With its extruder block-free screw configuration, the FED MTS model range particularly stands out due to a gentle compounding process. Different installation sizes between 25 and 94 mm are currently on offer along with a product-dependent operational capacity between 40kg and 4t per hour. Further model ranges are in the pipeline.

At the exhibition, the company not only focussed on the sale of machines from its standard range, but also offered tailor-made solutions as well as project planning and supply of turnkey lines, including peripheral equipment, worldwide.

“We recently leased a workshop with 300 squares metres of floor space from fellow Feddersen Group company AKRO-PLASTIC GmbH, based in Niederzissen in Germany’s Rheinland-Pfalz, and set up an ultra-modern pilot plant station there”, says Dieter Groß, Managing Director of FEDDEM GmbH & Co. KG. “At the station, we operate an extruder that is identical to the one we had on exhibit. The realistic line configuration, complete with material handling technology and all the required peripheral equipment, allows us to run it under production conditions”.

FEDDEM’s range of services is made complete with replacement parts supply, used machine reconditioning and on-site customer service.

For the past several weeks, FEDDEM GmbH & Co. KG customers have had already the opportunity to perform complex, stringent tests in the pilot plant station, under realistic production conditions over a space of about 300 m². On 21 September 2011, the pilot plant station was now officially opened.

The extrusion and compounding line manufacturer has leased a separate workshop with an adjacent office and meeting room from fellow Feddersen Group company AKRO-PLASTIC GmbH based in Niederzissen in Germany’s Rheinland-Pfalz. On 21 September 2011, customers and suppliers were able to see for themselves just how impressive the state-of-the-art equipment is.

With technical presentations on the theme of “compounding line design – worldwide”, visitors received detailed information about the peripheral equipment required for compounding, along with a comprehensive look at the FEDDEM range of products and services. In his presentation, for example, Rolf Schatz, from the field sales office for Germany West at AZO GmbH & Co. KG, Osterburken, talked about system concepts in compounding, from raw materials supply through to the handling of finished goods. He gave a vivid description of various mechanical and pneumatic systems used for product feed and removal, and explained the advantages compared with classic handling methods.

Uwe Stellmann, Sales Manager Light Industry at Schenk Process GmbH, Darmstadt, discussed the requirements for metering

manufacturers in turnkey projects and presented a number of high-tech solutions for all bulk metering jobs.

Harald Zang, Managing Director of Automatik Plastics Machinery GmbH, Großostheim, presented requirements, trends and solutions for the cost-effective, energy-efficient selection of pelletising systems. His talk centred primarily on a comparison of two techniques, strand palletising an underwater pelletising, with an explanation of the criteria that are crucial when choosing a suitable pelletising method. Using examples, he demonstrated how each system works, as well as the benefits and drawbacks of each one.

Rainer Merissen, Managing Director of Bruckmann Steuerungstechnik GmbH, Uedem, presented his company’s product range and systems for controlling compounding lines, including a complete, documented set of production-related data.

Benjamin Groos, a student at the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences, gave a brief presentation of his experience setting up a FEDDEM compounding line in China, which he did during a work placement programme he completed as part of his degree course. He was happy to report that the cooperation among German and Chinese colleagues was excellent, despite differences in mentality and a climate that differs greatly from that of central Europe.

Before moving on to the official ceremony inside the pilot plant station, Dieter Groß, Managing Director FEDDEM GmbH & Co. KG, took attendees on a virtual tour in the form of a presentation, with a detailed explanation of each unit on the line. He thanked the sponsors of the pilot plant station in particular, who contributed to the station installation with their components and equipment.

Together with Volker Scheel, Managing Director of K.D. Feddersen Holding GmbH, Dieter Groß then symbolically cut the ribbon, marking the official opening of the pilot plant station.“Our opening event was a complete success”, declared Groß. “Not only were we able to show our customers and business partners a state-of-the-art pilot plant station that responds to the demands of the marketplace, we were also able to provide insight into our international Group of companies, and in this way present ourselves as a strong, forward-looking partner for anything having to do with plastics”.

A pilot plant station provides a vital link between research and development and serial production. FEDDEM GmbH & Co. KG customers now have the opportunity to perform complex, stringent tests under realistic production conditions over a space of about 300 m². The extrusion and compounding line manufacturer has leased a separate workshop with an adjacent office and meeting room from fellow Feddersen Group company AKRO-PLASTIC GmbH based in Niederzissen in Germany’s Rheinland-Pfalz.

Tasks such as blending, filling and reinforcing can be performed on up to thirteen metering feeders to produce everything from standard or technical plastics through to high-performance plastics. The compounding line is also available to masterbatch manufacturers to test extrusion starting from premix.

Not only has the Twin-Screw Extruder FED 52 MTS been protected against abrasive und corrosive wear, but peripheral equipment has also been fitted using high-grade materials.

“Thanks to its modular design, the line can be easily modified to cover a wide range of extrusion tasks,” explains Dieter Gross, Managing Director at FEDDEM GmbH & Co. KG. “The processing length can be extended from 32 L/D to 42 L/D and 52 L/D. We have also built the extruder frame in two sections, thus ensuring that processing units with a different Da/Di ratio with the same centre distance can be installed onto the drive unit in just a few steps.”

The dual-level platform features enough space for product feed and metering feeders and is intended to hold a second compounding line, which is already at the planning stage.

State-of-the-art peripheral equipment made by renowned manufacturers ensures that customers can test performance in a production-like environment.

The system includes up to three side extruders, vacuum degasing, strand pelletizing (underwater pelletizing also planned), a grading screen, a spiral conveyor, suction conveying, a bagging machine with scales and many other items.

The line is controlled from an operating terminal with a touch screen, to which all the machines in the process are linked. All relevant data are shown on screen during testing and also displayed in the meeting room using a suitable software application.

Material samples produced in the pilot station can then be analysed in AKRO-PLASTIC’s adjacent, accredited laboratory (DIN EN ISO/IEC 17025:2005) which features all the essential instruments and equipment required for testing.

FEDDEM’s pilot plant station will be officially opened on September 21, 2011, but is already freely available for customer testing.

In today‘s rapidly emerging China, “Made in Germany” is a prized mark of quality. Particularly in the machine-building and plant construction industries, German manufacturers enjoy great success and are renowned for both innovative technology and excellent quality.

Since 2005 Niederzissen-based AKRO-PLASTIC GmbH, a specialist for innovative, application-orientated plastics compounds, has been successfully represented in the Chinese market with its own production facility. But strong demand and rapid growth in the Chinese plastics industry prompted the compounder to plan a new plant in China. Since the options for expanding the production facilities at the previous site between Shanghai and Suzhou were inadequate, it was decided to move into a new production plant in the city of Wujiang, located the same administrative district.

To ensure the compounds produced here would meet the same high quality standards as in the German parent factory, AKRO-PLASTIC relied on a tried-and-test partnership with the extrusion and compounding plant manufacturer FEDDEM GmbH & Co. KG, a member of the same corporate Group.

Founded as the continuation of Decroupet Maschinenbau’s “Extrusion and Compounding Line Construction” division, FEDDEM GmbH & Co. KG are able to draw on the extensive experience (over 25 years in some cases) of all the employees belonging to this division in order to manufacture versatile compounding lines for the production of high-quality engineering plastics compounds and master batches. Since 2009, the company has been a member of the internationally active Feddersen Group head-quartered in Hamburg.

But FEDDEM was not chosen simply on the basis of the “family ties” between the two companies. The companies, both head-quartered in Ahrweiler District, Rheinland-Pfalz, have maintained a successful partnership going back many years. FEDDEM are the equipment supplier for the AKRO-PLASTIC headquarters in Niederzissen and are also in charge of engineering services there. Thus it was possible to realize not only the extrusion technology, but also the entire plant, from raw materials supply through to the finished compound, to the exact building specifications of the German plants. Since formulations for the Chinese subsidiary are also developed in Niederzissen, the compounder is able to use only one data sheet for its products, irrespective of whether the compounding takes place in Germany or China.

Of course, a further prerequisite for the comparable product quality of the compounds is the quality of the raw materials used. “All of the raw materials used in the Chinese production are first approved by R&D in Niederzissen, and are again tested for quality in the modern in-house laboratory in China”, explains Dr. Thomas Wehrmeister, Head of Research & Development at AKRO-PLASTIC.

AKRO-PLASTIC can rely on FEDDEM employees’ decades of expertise in the construction of twin-screw extruders and design of complete turnkey systems, as well as the wear protection of all peripherals. Alongside the extruder itself, the peripherals are purchased exclusively from the renowned plant manufacturer and are delivered to customers in a custom FEDDEM equipment package.

True to the proverbial German punctuality, the plant in Wujiang was constructed, delivered and commissioned on time and according to schedule. “From the time the contract for the complete turnkey system was awarded until commissioning and handover to the customer, just eight months went by”, says Jürgen Welter, Project Manager at FEDDEM. “Quite a normal time frame for the delivery of a comparable plant within Europe, but very speedy for a delivery to China, considering the system had to be shipped and set up on location”, adds Welter with a smile.

Once again, membership in the Feddersen Group paid off. Many years of experience in logistics and the global export of products of all sorts helped to overcome many bureaucratic hurdles, ultimately enabling everything to be accomplished on schedule.

On location in China, all that AKRO Engineering Plastics had to do was to erect the production floor according to typical Chinese construction standards. The floor’s concrete slab was made by a Chinese construction company according to a foundation design by FEDDEM. It included special-purpose foundations designed to support the load of the steel structural elements, the required conduit shafts used to lay the main electrical lines and the cooling water pipes, which were brought to the designated positions along with the sewer manholes and gutters.

As its name suggests, FED 72 MTS, the new compounder operating in the Chinese city of Wujiang, has “Multi-Tasking” capability, allowing customers to compound a wide range of engineering plastics: PA6, PA6.6, PPA, PBT, PET and PP. The materials can be colourless or coloured, non-reinforced or mineral-reinforced (< 40%) and/or reinforced with a glass fibre content of as much as 60 percent by weight. The materials can also be finished with additives such as flame retardants.

These compounds can be processed with a comparatively short processing length of 32 L/D and only one screw configuration. A side feeder is all that is required.

Kneading units have been intentionally left out of the screw configuration in order to achieve glass-fibre-filled compounds with outstanding technical properties, in particular.

With the plug-in 10 L/D process extension, the basic machine can easily be adapted to accommodate the processing of mineral-filled compounds with a mineral content of over 40 percent by weight. In conjunction with a separate 42 L/D screw set configured for these products and the use of a second side feeder, fillings of over 70 percent by weight are possible.

In the third quarter of 2010, the AKRO Engineering Plastics factory began operating in Wujiang, in the province of Jiangsu. The very “first granule” from the line constructed and assembled by FEDDEM was fit to be sold; no process-optimization loops were required to achieve the desired product quality.

Starting off with two compounding lines, the yearly production capacity in China has been expanded to 7,000 tonnes. Additional lines will be added successively. The plant is designed to accommodate growth.

Thanks to the booming domestic auto industry, AKRO-PLASTIC’s business in China grew by around 35 percent in 2010. “For 2011, we are extremely optimistic and, based on the positive signs, we are forecasting further growth of approximately 70 percent”, says Frank Tao, Sales and Marketing Manager at AKRO Engineering Plastics (Suzhou) Co., Ltd.

“With the new, second compounding line and the growing demand for our compounds, we will definitely achieve this ambitious goal,” adds Tao.

„The new FED Compounder harmonizes design and function“, according to Erwin Bell, Head of Production at FEDDEM GmbH & Co. KG. “Besides the re-styled outer appearance, we have implemented some new technical solutions to enhance the extruders performance”.

„The Feedback from the majority of visitors confirms that we have reflected the spirit of times with our new machinery design”, according to Dieter Groß, Managing Director at FEDDEM GmbH & Co. KG.

According to the companies’ statement, the response of visitors to the young company’s inaugural presence at the show was extremely satisfying. The considerable level of interest in turn-key systems shown was a particular highlight. In cooperation with partner companies, FEDDEM designs such turn-key systems worldwide.

The manufacturer of extrusion and compounding lines benefited from several interesting enquiries from existing customers as well as potential customers generated from its first presence at K.