Bepex International has signed an agreement with Vietnam-based Thanh Tai Gas Company to custom design, fabricate and deliver its new line of plastic bottle recycling systems, called BePET.
According to Bepex, a process development specialist in the chemical, mineral, and polymer industries, the FDA-approved system will allow Thanh Tai to recycle up to 1.5 billion PET bottles per year.
According to the company, the system is unique because it allows the processing plant operator to control both decontamination of the plastic and product intrinsic viscosity (IV) - a measure of the strength of the plastic polymer, which determines how the resulting plastic can be used - at the same time and in solid form.
Different IV plastic can be used for different applications; for example high IV can be used for tire cord applications, while low IV plastic can be used for fibre applications such as fleece, or carpet.
The company says that the first line of the FDA-approved system for Thanh Tai will be installed and fully operational by January 2012. Following this a second parallel line will be installed to expand capacity to produce different IV plastic for a variety of applications, especially for the food packing industry.
