Battenfeld-Cincinnati (Vienna / Austria; www.battenfeld-cincinnati.com) has introduced the “fiberexK72” extruder for wood plastic composites (WPC). The company said the conical counter-rotating machine is suitable for newcomers to WPC extrusion and offers a wide range of outputs, from 90 to 275 kg/h, making it possible to extrude a wide variety of profiles. The compact machine is suitable for processing pre-blended compounds as well as agglomerates based on PVC, PE or PP and has closed-loop screw core tempering, a fully insulated processing unit, AC drive and an easy-to-operate vacuum unit with a twin filter as standard.

Speaking at its 2010 wood plastic composites conference, where the machine was launched, Jon Nash, head of strategic research at organiser Applied Market Information (AMI, Bristol / UK; www.amiplastics.com), said the average annual growth rate in WPCs was 27 % in Europe between 2005 and 2009. The researcher forecasts average annual growth rates of 17% up to 2013 with the greatest growth potential in the construction and building exteriors sectors.

During a demonstration at the conference, battenfeld-cincinnati showed the “fiberexK72” in a complete line producing a hollow decking profile. Two different WPC compounds were processed, one based on PVC, the other on PP, with the material changeover being carried out without production downtime.