rubber and elastomers

A customised solution for any challenge

The Planetary Roller Extruder offers various features that are decisive for successfully producing and compounding rubber and elastomers. It is able to process all formulation components in a single step in a continuous process thanks to optimised tempering – eliminating the need for discontinuous steps. It also delivers excellent material quality, reduces the volume of raw material required, presents a wide range of processing possibilities, and offers excellent degassing performance and blister-free results.

• Process all formulation components in a single step thanks to excellent tempering and reduce production costs.

  The Planetary Roller Extruder’s ability to process rubber and elastomers in a single step is revolutionary. All formulation components – including the vulcanising agents – can be fed into the Planetary Roller Extruder in the required sequence. This is made possible by optimised temperature control and the ability to temper the melt that is afforded by the Planetary Roller Extruder’s continuous thin-rolling. The friction heat that is generated can be removed from the process. The maximum melt temperature required for processing and adding the vulcanising agent can be precisely set. This eliminates the multi-step manufacturing process that is required for the conventional technique – significantly lowering expenditures for intermediate storage and transport.

• Continuous – instead of discontinuous – processing

  The Planetary Roller Extruder continuously processes rubber and elastomers. This makes it possible to maintain consistently high product quality. There is no need to cool the material by placing it in intermediate storage, something that would be necessary using the conventional technique with kneaders. Continuous operation also allows operational costs overall to be reduced.

• Excellent material quality

  Using a Planetary Roller Extruder to process rubber and elastomers offers material-friendly processing for all formulation components. For some compounds, higher, specific kneading and dispersion energies are required. These can be precisely set for each process using suitable machine elements such as planetary spindles and dispersion rings. The Planetary Roller Extruder’s continuous thin-rolling of the material ensures excellent material tempering. This avoids the formation of hot-spots and delivers homogeneous product quality.
  By processing all formulation components in a single step, the materials only have to be heated once when using a Planetary Roller Extruder. The result: materials are subjected to lower levels of temperature stress and have a lower temperature history, reducing the proportion of stabilisers that must be added to the process.

• Reduced raw material requirements – reduced costs

  It is also efficient: as a result of the outstanding mixing, homogenisation and dispersion achieved when processing rubber and elastomers in a Planetary Roller Extruder, the use of process additives and vulcanising agents can be reduced while producing finished materials of the same or even better quality.

• Wide range of processing possibilities

  Flexible in every sense of the word: thanks to their modularity and tremendous adaptability in structure and configuration, the Planetary Roller Extruder can process all manner of rubber and elastomer compounds. Among other things, these include natural rubber, synthetic rubbers, fillers such as chalk / talcum / carbon black / silica, additives, UV stabilisers, antioxidants, processing agents, process oils, vulcanising agents and colourants. Soft formulations – such as when processing bitumen – and dry formulations without a process oil can also be processed. It is even possible to conduct chemical reactions like the silanisation reaction in the Planetary Roller Extruder. In this case, the Planetary Roller Extruder’s process configuration is adapted to provide the dwell time, surface area exchange and reaction temperature necessary for the silanisation reaction.

• Optimised degassing and blister-free results

  The raw materials used often make it necessary to remove air or bound water (e.g. from carbon black) from the melt. Without this step, completing the vulcanisation of the final product would result in porous structures and the creation of blisters, each of which would have negative effects, including a deterioration in the properties of the materials produced. Porous structures can also lead to reduced functionality.
  When processing rubber and elastomers in a Planetary Roller Extruder, degassing is performed directly in the Planetary Roller Extruder and – where needed – in addition using a single-screw extruder coupled with the Planetary Roller Extruder via a transfer chamber. Thanks to the excellent continuous thin-rolling and surface renewal, as well as the ability to operate a Planetary Roller Extruder even when it is only partially filled, air and bound water can be removed from the melt extremely effectively. In addition degassing can also be realized in a single-screw extruder coupled with the final roller cylinder via a transfer chamber.