Plastics and Rubber

Haartz Electrifies with Water Source Heat Pump

By Troy Dreier, Senior Editor, Compressed Air & Cooling Best Practices Magazine

An automotive fabric products manufacturer, reduced natural gas consumption and carbon emissions by implementing a water source heat pump system that captures waste heat from process cooling operations and converts it into usable heating energy for a large makeup air unit. The project simultaneously lowers cooling demand on the facility’s chilled water plant, demonstrating how industrial manufacturers can leverage heat recovery and electrification technologies to improve energy efficiency and support decarbonization goals.

Read Full Story

Schneider Electric Turns Waste into Efficiency

By Anand Varahala, Director, Energy & Sustainability, Schneider Electric

This article details how Schneider Electric transformed waste heat into a reliable energy source at its Lincoln, Nebraska facility. By repurposing low-temperature process cooling water and optimizing building pressurization and controls, the plant significantly reduced natural gas use, water consumption and CO2 emissions while improving indoor comfort and air quality. The project demonstrates how an efficiency-first approach—leveraging existing infrastructure, advanced controls and digital analytics—can deliver measurable sustainability gains and create a scalable pathway toward full electrification and net-zero operations.
[ Read Full Story ]

Adiabatic Coolers: An Evolution in Sustainable Process Cooling

By Eric Thompson, General Manager, Frigel North America

Adiabatic coolers are rapidly gaining ground in plastics processing as manufacturers seek sustainable, energy-efficient alternatives to traditional cooling towers. By operating in dry, adiabatic and free-cooling modes, modern systems engineered by Frigel North America deliver up to 90% water savings, lower energy consumption and improved temperature stability for injection molding, PET, extrusion and thermoforming applications. With reduced maintenance, closed-loop protection and long-term ROI advantages, adiabatic cooling is emerging as the new benchmark for high-performance industrial process cooling.
[ Read Full Story ]

Process Cooling Systems Engineers for Industrial Applications

By Troy Dreier, Senior Editor, Compressed Air & Cooling Best Practices Magazine

In this article: Cooling for High-Speed Injection Plastic Molding Free Cooling Results in Massive Energy Savings Heat Treating Processes Require Cooling to Prevent Furnace Overheating Food Processing Cooling Needs Vary by the Specific Process Chemical Plants Need Ultra-Cold Conditions
[ Read Full Story ]

Combined Design Does the Work of Two Cooling Systems at Bottling Plant

By Clayton Penhallegon, Jr., P.E., Managing Member, Integrated Services Group

Faced with the requirement for improved cooling, a blow molding plant chose to invest in a significant redesign of its cooling systems that combined two separate systems into a single, integrated system. The combined design leveraged the components to provide a more controlled, efficient system while also requiring less space than the alternative would have needed. 
[ Read Full Story ]

Chiller, Cooling Tower and Air Compressor Innovations at NPE2024

By Troy Dreier, Chiller & Cooling Best Practices Magazine

NPE2024: The Plastics Show took place in Orlando, Florida, May 2024, and Chiller & Cooling Best Practices Magazine and Compressed Air Best Practices® Magazine and were there to cover the highlights. This year’s conference drew over 50,000 registrants, including 15,000 from outside the United States. Filling both buildings of the Orlando Convention Center, the conference included zones dedicated to bottling, recycling and sustainability, material science, advanced manufacturing, mold-making and packaging. 
[ Read Full Story ]

Plastics Processor Saves Big on Chilled Water Energy and Maintenance

By Clayton Penhallegon, Jr., P.E., Integrated Services Group

An Illinois protective packaging manufacturer was able to reduce their cooling costs by over 60% while also saving around $100,000 each year on system maintenance by replacing their old system with high-efficiency equipment and a streamlined hydronic design.  Helped by ComEd efficiency incentives, the plant captured these benefits through an under 2.4 year payback system upgrade project.
[ Read Full Story ]

Having an Impact at Berry Global

By Roderick Smith, Chiller & Cooling Best Practices Magazine

Our simplified business model is to melt plastic and cool it back into the form we want – and cooling water makes this happen. We need to optimize chilled water temperature and flow to ensure that our production machines make consistent finished products. In molding application, we cool the plastic through conduction and convection directly. Blown film is different in that cooling-water cools the air and then an air handler cools the plastic.
[ Read Full Story ]

Sustainability Pillars at Intertape Polymer Group Inc.

By Roderick M. Smith, Chiller & Cooling Best Practices Magazine

In February 2021, Chiller & Cooling Best Practices Magazine interviewed members of the Intertape Polymer Group Inc. (IPG) Sustainability Pillars team to gain an understanding of the work being done to improve energy efficiency. The team members interviewed were Michael Jones (Director of Corporate Energy), Michael Deitering (Senior Project Engineer), Jarrod Knapp (Maintenance Manager) and Mark Secord (Engineering Group Leader).
[ Read Full Story ]

Process Cooling System Helps rPlanet Earth “Close the Loop” on Recycling Post-consumer Plastics

By Mike Grennier, Chiller & Cooling Best Practices Magazine

rPlanet Earth is a rarity in the plastics recycling and manufacturing industry. After all, its operation in Vernon, California, is the world’s only vertically integrated facility able to convert polyethylene terephthalate (PET) packaging waste into recycled PET (rPET) packaging for food and beverage industries. Yet, rPlanet Earth is much like any other plastics company in one key aspect: it must maintain production efficiencies to meet growing demand for its high-quality products. 
[ Read Full Story ]

Schoeneck Containers Comes Out Ahead with Free-Cooling System

By Mike Grennier, Chiller & Cooling Best Practices Magazine

Schoeneck Containers, Inc. (SCI) is a company that thinks a lot about its future – and how to continue to maintain a long track record of profitability and reliability while meeting a growing demand for its quality plastic containers for customers throughout North America. It’s the kind of thinking driving the decision to install a closed-loop adiabatic fluid cooler and central chiller with free-cooling capabilities at the company’s new 250,000-square-foot production facility in Delavan, Wisconsin.   
[ Read Full Story ]

Central Chiller Plant Upgrade Helps Plastics Extruder Grow

By Mike Grennier, Chiller & Cooling Best Practices Magazine

At the company’s production plant employees manufacture a complete range of engineered, high-performance polymers. At the heart of the operation are numerous extrusion lines and related equipment that operate 24 hours a day, five days per week to produce and ship as much as five million pounds of high-performance polymer pellets each month. The process of producing pellets begins when the rotating screw on each extruder accepts a carefully calibrated mix of thermoplastic materials, as well as additives, from a hopper and pushes the mixture into the extruder’s barrel.
[ Read Full Story ]

Show Report: Chillers, Vacuum & Compressed Air at the NPE 2018 Plastics Showcase

By Rod Smith, Chiller & Cooling Best Practices Magazine

The NPE 2018 International Plastics Showcase was held at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida, May 7-11. Setting all-time records, the Show attracted 2,180 exhibitors — including Chiller & Cooling Best Practices and Compressed Air Best Practices® Magazines! Over 1,200,000 square feet of exhibition space was used, breaking the all-time NPE record. Held once every three years, NPE 2018 registered attendance was 56,000.
[ Read Full Story ]

Flow – The Most Important Factor for Injection Molding Heat Transfer

By Al Fosco, Marketing Manager, Frigel North America

A common misconception in plastics injection molding is that coolant temperature is the one true path to achieve productivity and profitability. The reality, however, is that turbulent flow is the primary force behind efficient cooling and a key driver in the ability to achieve operational efficiencies, increase profits and consistently produce high quality products.
[ Read Full Story ]

Process Chiller Water Treatment Basics for Plastic Injection Molding

By E. Michael Ostermeier, Technical Sales, Apex Engineering Products

One of the most important steps in the mold making process is a consistent and proper cooling cycle. This is due to the fact cooling rates can have a significant influence on the overall quality of the finished item. The cooling cycle must remain consistent throughout the entire production run to ensure all items are equal in quality.
[ Read Full Story ]

Process Cooling Evolves to Advance Plastics Processors

By Al Fosco, Global Marketing Manager, Frigel North America

Plastics processors are looking to advanced process cooling equipment to lower operational costs, and in many cases, improve the quality of products and achieve sustainability goals. But it’s more than just a matter of finding a better mousetrap and putting systems to work. Instead, it requires a keen understanding of the processes involved, followed by the design and installation of advanced technology in combination with the right process cooling systems matched to a company’s goals.
[ Read Full Story ]

The Process Cooling System Assessment - Linear Low-density Polyethylene Film Cooling

By Tim Dugan P.E., President, Compression Engineering Corporation

Controlled cooling is an essential part of manufacturing polyethylene stretch film. The process starts with granulated polyethylene raw product with very low strength, and develops thin, clear, strong film used in a variety of applications.  It does this by melting, extrusion, “casting” and winding.  See Figure 1 for a typical system diagram.  “Casting” is forming and cooling at the same time. The extruded polymer is stretched and cooled on large, chrome-plated rollers with cooling water flowing inside. Thinner film is for manual use, like wrapping around food products.  Thicker, stronger product is made for machine use, like automatically wrapping pallets of concrete bags.
[ Read Full Story ]

Understanding Intelligent Process Cooling

By Frigel Corporation

Intelligent process cooling describes an approach to cooling in beverage production and packaging that moves beyond evaporative cooling towers and the use of traditional central chiller systems that rely on ammonia as a refrigerant. Unlike traditional methods, it intelligently matches process cooling systems to individual cooling loads without an evaporative process or the use of ammonia to gain verifiably better results in energy efficiency, water use, and safety.
[ Read Full Story ]

5 Sizing Steps for Chillers in Plastic Process Cooling

By Bob Casto, Cold Shot Chillers®

No matter what your application, there is a single formula for determining the size of chiller you need. There also industry-specific, rules-of-thumb for chiller sizing. These may vary depending upon the application. These guidelines and formulas may be used for sizing chillers for plastic process cooling applications.
[ Read Full Story ]

Energy Management at Intertape Polymer Group

By Rod Smith, Chiller & Cooling Best Practices

Chiller & Cooling Best Practices interviewed Michael Jones, Corporate Energy Team Leader, from Intertape Polymer Group (IPG).   Intertape Polymer Group (IPG) is a manufacturer of tapes, films, woven fabrics, and complementary packaging systems for industrial and consumer use. The company operates 10 production plants and employs approximately 1,800 people. IPG has developed a robust energy management program by using ENERGY STAR energy management tools and actively participating in the ENERGY STAR partnership. IPG is receiving ENERGY STAR recognition for the growth of its energy program and leadership as a medium-sized manufacturer.
[ Read Full Story ]