European company’s customer day in Virginia shows off its production, service capacity in North America.

Liebherr USA Co., based in Newport News, Virginia, hosted visitors from around the world at its first Customer Day May 12. The company says it highlighted and demonstrated a diverse range of products across 10 industry segments including earthmoving, material handling technology, mobile and crawler cranes and components.

Among new products displayed by Liebherr USA were its LTM 1110-5.2 all-terrain crane, LTM 1300-6.3 all-terrain crane, LR 1700 crawler crane, LR 1400 SX crawler crane, LR 1250.1 unplugged crawler crane and its PR 776 dozer.

The company says it also was able to show off the expanded campus it began to occupy last April, revealing “the $60 million enhancement to the facilities” that include a 60,000-square-foot administrative building, an 82,000-square-foot workshop and training facility, a 92,000-square-foot parts distribution warehouse, a wash bay building and a guardhouse.

“The investment in our new Liebherr USA headquarters and facilities represents our strong commitment to the United States market,” Liebherr Managing Director Kai Friedrich says. “The new state-of-the-art repair and training facilities as well as the new central warehouse are, in terms of size and technical standards, advanced and comply with current and future requirements of our customers, covering all 10 product segments.”

The Customer Day preceded Liebherr’s Recruiter and Counselor Open House Friday, May 13, and Family Day Saturday, May 14. “After two years of anticipation, we are honored to present our newly expanded facilities and products on such a momentous day,” Liebherr Managing Director Tim Gerhardt says. “This opportunity allows us to showcase Liebherr’s growth and dedication to our U.S. partners and customers.”

Plastic recycling firm issues ESG report saying its polypropylene production also produces low carbon emissions.

PureCycle Technologies Inc., Orlando, Florida, has released an environment, social and governance (ESG) report that includes life cycle assessment (LCA) data it says shows the company's purification process for recycling polypropylene (No. 5 plastic) scrap “uses less energy and has lower carbon emissions than new plastic production.”

PureCycle says its 2021 ESG report “spotlights PureCycle’s effort to scale and optimize its unique No. 5 plastic recycling [process], harness the latest manufacturing technology systems and leverage top-tier talent to fulfill the company’s mission of transforming plastic [scrap] into a continuously renewable resource.”

The company says highlights of its report include that, based on the design of PureCycle’s Ironton, Ohio, facility, carbon emissions from creating recycled-content polypropylene (PP) are expected to be 35 percent lower compared with producing new PP.

As well, the company says, the PureCycle process is expected to use 79 percent less energy than new PP production. PureCycle also says it “is positioning itself to connect brands with high-quality, sustainable plastic to deliver on their promises to reduce new plastic production and to answer consumer demands for real sustainability.”

Mike Otworth, chair and CEO of PureCycle, says, “As a plastic recycling technology company aiming to reduce plastic waste, partnering with leading brands to help them create sustainable consumer products, and transforming the industry, it’s essential we also do our part to minimize our environmental impact and conserve resources. As we continue to refine our approach, we will look for impactful, innovative ways to reduce carbon emissions and utilize less energy. This is just the beginning.”

Sorting technology provider says Steinert.view offers “real-time data visualization” for sorting lines.

Steniert GmbH, a German-based sorting technology provider, describes its Steinert.view feature as “a flexible and reliable monitoring solution for Steinert sensor-based sorting machines.”

The company says the new feature gives users insight into the availability and output of individual machines, allowing them to learn more about the condition of their applications or sorting facility. “For the first time ever, this detailed machine data is accessible at any time and from any location."

Designed as a mobile-first app, Steinert.view has been designed to provide users with an overview of performance and output data. “At the same time, complex process technologies can also be visualized,” says Steinert, adding that “filter functions mean users never lose track of things and can easily identify areas where problems are arising or potential lies untapped.”

The magnetic and optical sorting company says Steinert.view “resulted from working in close collaboration with customers and extensive testing.” The technology is available for all new Steinert sensor sorting units as an app for common screen sizes in the Apple App store and the Google Play store, says the company. It is available as an upgrade for machines constructed in 2018 and later, Steinert adds.

“The unavoidable approach used to date of walking through the entire facility can now be replaced with precise interventions and efficient deployment of staff,” Steinert says of the benefits of Steinert.view. “Problems can be proactively countered by making changes to metrics such as belt cover or compressed air consumption. Before service staff even get to the machine, they know what work they can expect to be doing and can use mobile access to get other staff started without delay. This cuts downtimes and improves speed and mobility.”

The technology provider says Steinert.view can help improve sorting performance. “Changing the grain size distribution can impact on the product unit as can material distribution,” the company says. “Comparing nominal and actual values in a graph reveals where action needs to be taken right away. In this way, the data can be used to visualize the effectiveness of measures so that the user can get close to a machine’s optimum operating point.”

The company will display Steinert.view at the IFAT 2022 trade fair in Munich in late May and early June at its exhibit area located in Hall B6, Booth 551.

Company says its new 817 Electro Battery model is freely movable while offering CO2 savings.

Germany-based Sennebogen calls its new 817 Electro Battery battery-powered electric material handler “the first of the freely movable battery-powered models that Sennebogen will be adding to its tried-and-tested electric range in the future.”

The new 817 E model is “useful technology for maximum CO2 savings and flexibility,” states the firm.

The company says it has been building electric material handlers for more than 30 years, although previous models are used in stationary applications or with limited mobility because of their need to be linked via cable to a power source.

A weakness of some competitors’ pure battery-powered models “have proven to be [because of] the limited operating time of the batteries,” states Sennebogen.

The 817 Electro Battery model, says the company, offers “dual power management” to “ensure that the power supply from the [grid] is used for work movements, while the excess power fed in also recharges the batteries so the machine can then work independently again.”

With an assumed 2,000 operating hours per year and energy generation from renewable energy sources, the battery-powered material handler can save an average of 31,800 kilograms (70,100 pounds) of CO2 per year compared with some diesel-powered counterparts – and with equal freedom of movement.

Sennebogen says it is planning to offer the battery option will be available in its 817 to 825 model range.

The charging connection of the new 817 is located on the undercarriage, so “the machine can continue to swivel and work 360 degrees” while charging, says the company. When the grid connection is disconnected, the 817 Electro Battery “automatically detects this and works autonomously in battery operation with the same performance data,” states Sennebogen.

Depending on the power requirement, the battery pack allows for six hours operating hours without recharging, says the company.

The premiere of the 817 E will take place from May 30 May to June 3 at the IFAT trade fair in Munich, with Sennebogen’s exhibit located in Hall C5, Stand 241/340.

French petrochemical firm will use New Hope Energy technology at 310,000-ton-per-year plant.

France-based TotalEnergies and Texas-based New Hope Energy have signed a commercial agreement under which New Hope Energy will build a chemical recycling plant in the Lone Star state, the two companies say.

At the plant, plastic scrap will be converted into “a recycled feedstock that TotalEnergies will partly purchase and convert into virgin-quality polymers, which can be used for food-grade packaging,” the French petrochemical firm says.

New Hope Energy describes itself as “a pioneer in the field of chemical recycling.” The company has been operating a facility in Tyler, Texas, since 2018, with an expansion underway that it says will make that plant “the largest pyrolysis facility in the world.”

The TotalEnergies/New Hope Energy plant is expected to start production in 2025 and will use what the companies call a patented pyrolysis technology that was developed in partnership with Houston-based Lummus Technology.

The new plant, for which a site has not yet been selected or disclosed, will process and convert more than 310,000 tons per year of mixed plastic scrap that TotalEnergies says “would otherwise be destined for landfill or incineration.”

TotalEnergies will then use 100,000 tons of what it is calling recycled polymer feedstock (RPF) produced at the new facility at its Texas-based production units “to manufacture high-quality polymers suitable for food-grade applications such as flexible and rigid food packaging containers.”

Last year, United States-based Dow announced it had established a multiyear agreement with New Hope Energy for its Tyler facility to supply Dow with pyrolysis oil feedstocks derived from plastics recycled there.

Valérie Goff, senior vice president of polymers at TotalEnergies, says, “We are pleased to partner with New Hope Energy, which offers a promising technology and the ability to scale. This new project is another concrete and significant step TotalEnergies is taking to address the challenge of plastic recycling and meet our goal of producing 30 percent circular polymers by 2030.”

Rusty Combs, CEO of New Hope Energy, adds, “TotalEnergies understands the need to increase recycling in the U.S. and abroad, and [its] 2030 renewable polymer goal is a testament [to its] commitment to the circular economy. Our partnership with Lummus has allowed us to provide the scale and reliability necessary to support them in this mission.”

“The ability to effectively and economically convert waste plastics to pyrolysis oil for further use is a critical step in achieving a true circular economy,” says Leon de Bruyn, president and CEO of pyrolysis technology provider Lummus. “Supporting TotalEnergies in reaching [its] sustainability goals is exactly what our integrated processing solutions are designed to do.”