By Bill Bregar
SENIOR STAFF REPORTER
Published: October 22, 2013 2:16 pm ET
DÜSSELDORF, GERMANY — Piovan Spa (Hall 9/C-59) is showing a new filterless PureFlow vacuum receiver for conveying, invented by auxiliary industry veteran Chuck Thiele.
Piovan has signed an exclusive licensing agreement with Vactec Ltd., Thiele's firm in Kalamazoo, Mich.
Piovan engineers did six months of extensive testing and evaluations of the receiver before inking the agreement two weeks before K 2013. The first PureFlow units are on display at Piovan's booth.
Traditional vacuum receivers use filters, so air that goes into the vacuum pump does not carry plastic material with it. The PureFlow technology solves that problem by making a 90-degree bend in the receiving pipe, which aims down into the receiver.
That means the air that is moving the plastic at 4,500 feet per minute through the conveying tubes flows back up the sides of the receiver at just 200 feet per minute, not enough to move the plastic, so the material drops down and remains in the receiver.
Another new product from Piovan is the Quantum gravimetric central conveying system. The key is the Q12 remote mixer, which is on the molding machine.
That means the material is remixed just before it goes into the press.
"There is no change of segregation" of materials, and they are fully mixed before processing," Thiele said. | 
