101 Guide: How to Select Plastic Granulator

To select a Plastic granulator is not an easy task. A plastic crusher is a high speed and industrial size reduction machine. A wrong model selection may cause a serious consequence. In this article, Wiscon Envirotech will land you on how to choose a plastic granulator in perspective of safety, power consumption, viability, and budget, based on 5 important factors.

Know your Plastic Waste

First of all , you need to get clear the application of your granulator machine for plastic.  You want to just reclaim your plastic waste like purges and non-conforming parts? Then measure the dimension of your waste. Make usre the waste is not contaminated and mixed with metals, because the former needs washing and the latter can damage the blades of granulators. Some oversize plastic item requires primary shredding: plastic shredder.

Secondly, inform us the composition of your plastic wastes. Not all plastics are easy to cope with, for example, engineering plastics like PEEK and reinforced plastic like fiberglass. Hard plastics requires better blades and a different rotor and even augmented motor power.

If you really do not know how to select a model, then tell us the size and composition of your waste, the final size as well as how to feed materials and collects the regrinds. With our experience in plastic recycling, we can offer you a complete solution.

Accessories of plastic granulators

Size of  Infeed Hopper and Crushing Chamber

A larger model is designed with a bigger crushing chamber and bigger infeed hopper. With these 2 combined, a plastic crusher can process objects in bigger size and tougher construction. Of couse, bigger always more expansive. Beware to set up your budget first, and next match your biggest plastic waste in hand to the infeed hopper size. Make sure the item can enter the infeed hopper and fall into the crushing chamber smoothly.

Motor Power

The electric motor is one of the most expensive parts used in a plastic granulator. To reduce costs, many suppliers, especially in Asia, choose to use an inferior motor to achieve competitive prices.  It is not necessarily true that a faster motor will produce better results, but it is the combination of various factors (e.g. dynamtic balancing, drive belts and bearing) that produces the best crushing efficiency. Wiscon Envirotech adopts second grade power-efficient motor, which in turn will save your power consumption.

Knife

Wiscon Envirotech manufactures our own knives for granulator. It is the blades that are making contact with and shearing the plastic materials, so the blades should withstand wearing and shock. A crusher blade featuring long sercie life, hard and easy to install is our thumb of rules of developing crusher blades. This is one of the key to select a plastic granulator.

Number of knives: The number of knives used in each granulator is different and based on the design. While common granulators are equipped with 3-6 rotor knives and 2-3 bed or fixed knives, some models may have more than 30 rotor knives. It is the combination of cutting chamber size, pelletizer type, number of knives and motor speed that affects the overall speed of a pelletizer.

Output Size

The regrind size relies on screen opening size. We recommend the regrind size to be from 8mm to 20mm, but 12mm (0.5 inch) is the standard. Under the same specs of a plastic grinder, smaller the screen size results in smaller output, because it takes a longer time size reduce the plastic waste to the desired size.

There are special screens for flexible materials like plastic films.

Other Pointers to Consider

Easiness on operation and maintenance?

Does it allow wet granulating (adding water during granulation)?

How tall is the infeed hopper? Do you need a conveyor or manually feed?

Add insulation to reduce noise?

How to collect regrinds?

These quesitons matter to select a plastic granulator.

A wet plastic granulator in a drum recycling line

Further Reading on How to Select a Plastic Granulator

Other granulator accessories, you can refer them here.

For more info on how a plastic granulator works, please click here.